1. The Bureaucracy…

2.  Congress creates agencies  Influences agency behavior by statutes it enacts  Congress authorizes funds for programs  Allows program to exist  Done by legislative committee  Congress appropriates money  Always done by House Appropriations Com.  Funds can’t be spent until appropriated, usually for less than authorized

3.  Appropriations Committee may be the most powerful  Most expenditure recommendations are approved by House  Tends to recommend an amount lower than the agency requested  Has power to influence an agency’s policies by “marking up” an agency’s budget  But becoming less powerful ▪ Trust funds operate outside the regular government budget and are not controlled by the appropriations committees ▪ (Social Security being the largest) ▪ Annual authorizations allow the legislative committees greater oversight (they can set limits on authorizations before Appropriations com. sets appropriations) ▪ Budget deficits have necessitated cuts

4.  Informal Congressional controls over agencies  Individual members of Congress can seek privileges for constituents  Congressional committees may seek committee clearance, the right to review/approve certain agency decisions w/o passing a law

5.  Definition: authority of Congress to block a presidential action (Congress vetoes executive order)  Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court in Chadha (1983) ▪ Congress can’t take action that has force of law w/o executive consent  However, Congress still passes laws that contain legislative vetoes.  They will stand until challenged in court

6.  Power inferred from the congressional power to legislate (SC upholds, but not if personal)  Means for checking agency discretion and also for authorizing agency actions independent of presidential preferences

7. Red tape: keeps large organizations operating smoothly, also satisfies legal/political requirements Conflict and Duplication: Congress sets up agencies to achieve a number of goals which end up overlapping Imperialism- goals are vague and difficult to measure…hard to tell when they’ve reached it (so they just keep going) Waste: no incentive for agency to cut waste ▪ Use it or lose it! ▪ Must buy American, hire unions etc.

8.  Numerous attempts to make the bureaucracy work better for less money  Prior reforms stressed increasing centralized control on behalf of efficiency, accountability, and consistency  National Performance Review (NPR) in 1993 designed to reinvent government calling for a new kind of organizational culture ▪ Less centralized management ▪ More employee initiatives ▪ Fewer detailed rules, more customer satisfaction

9.  Most rules/red tape are due to struggles between president and Congress  Periods of divided government worsen matters, especially in implementing policy  Presidents of one party seek to increase political control (executive micromanagement)  Congresses of another party respond by increasing investigations and rules (legislative micromanagement)

10.  Government in the Sunshine Act (1976)  Required for 1 st time all multi-headed federal agencies hold their meetings regularly in public session  Freedom of Information Act (1966)  Required federal govt agencies, with some exceptions, to disclose to individuals at their request any information about them contained in govt files.  Many curbs on the public’s access to information since 9/11  Thousands of documents removed from internet sites, libraries, etc, in the name of national security. All states also have similar laws!