Cops and Bureaucrats

It's a perfectly natural, if somewhat simplistic, reaction to the actions of bad cops to insist that police everywhere are irredeemably racist and that police departments everywhere should be disbanded. The drive to “defund the police” can mean a number of things, from reducing (and redirecting) funding all the way to eliminating funding altogether. The more moderate view – that of reducing and redirecting funding – can, however, be based on an erroneous premise, namely that if you reduce police funding you will, somehow, get rid of the bad cops – that they will be the first fired, as it were. But this is a mistake, and I'm not just talking about the police unions and their armies of lawyers.

I compare it to what a very wise person (whose name I forget) once said about the government bureaucracy. He was responding to the notion that reducing funding for any given government agency would automatically reduce the proportion of dead wood, AKA “useless eaters” in Bolshevik terminology, as if that class of employee was hanging on to their jobs by a thread. Actually, the very opposite is the case. In a typical government bureaucracy it's the dead wood that is most difficult to get rid of, because they are more likely to have seniority (time in service), whereas the competent people tend to move from one position to another on the way up the totem pole, and also to move readily between the government and the private sector. Walk into any government agency (federal, state, local) you can name, and I can pick out the dead wood in about five minutes. They're the ones off by themselves in a corner who don't seem to be doing anything – whose in-box is as empty as their out-box. In other words, no one expects them to do anything so they don't feel under any pressure to pretend to do anything. (Think of Wally in “Dilbert”.) But they have seniority! Wow, do they ever! Just try getting rid of them – you can't do it.

So let's say that a given government agency has, say, 20% dead wood. (This is not an overly-high number – I've seen places where it's more like 80%. There are government agencies that are little more than sheltered workshops – they aren't called that, but that's what they amount to.) Then you assume that if you cut the budget of said agency by 20% it magically gets rid of the dead wood. Not only is this not the case for reasons given above, but it's not true because, number one, you can't “target” given personnel in response to budget cuts – you still have to adhere to rules of seniority as well as a plethora of other considerations (age discrimination being one). And number two, even if you somehow – miraculously – get rid of a piece of dead wood, they are more likely than not to wind up in a different agency that is not undergoing cuts. This is because anyone in the government who is “downsized” has automatic preference over all other applicants – aptitude, motivation, and even performance ratings being totally irrelevant. (We used to call these people “stoppers” because they would cause a hiring action to grind to a halt because we didn't want to hire them but we couldn't hire anyone else as long as they were on the list. So we just had to wait it out until they got a job elsewhere, or retired, or died, or some other fortunate event.) So the overall impact of all of your effort is canceled out.

So as the commentator put it, you can't just cut off the “fat”, because it's “larded through”. He said it's not like a chicken, where the fat and the meat are easily separated; it's more like marbled steak – you can't get rid of the dead wood without endangering the competent employees. (I would even compare it to the Biblical parable of the wheat and the tares.)

So when it comes to the police, a similar principle applies. “Defunding” will not get rid of the bad cops; it will get rid of a certain percentage of cops, both good and bad. And if the comparison holds true, it might well get rid of proportionately more good cops than bad, because, once again, the bad ones tend to stay put and build seniority (and they may also have “connections”), whereas the good ones are more likely to be looking around for greener pastures.

An extreme case could arise. Let's say you defund a police department to the point where the only employees left are the bad cops. This could happen if the good ones all bail (retire, seek other employment) as the cuts are imposed. Or, in the present context, if the good ones all become sick of the whole thing and simply quit. Is this what we want?

So, once again, whoever is holding up all the “Defund the Police” signs should think twice. For one thing, they clearly don't understand bureaucracies and how they function (or fail to function). And they don't understand all of the perverse and paradoxical effects of policies which look good on paper but wreak havoc when applied at ground level.

A more reality-based, nuanced point of view would be to insist that the selection process for police be expanded to include what we might call “personality” variables – i.e. things other than demonstrated competence in police work. The problem there is that personality variables are notoriously difficult to assess in an objective manner (and one that would satisfy, let's say, the police unions), but – more critically – someone who looks good on a given personality test under normal – let's say “relaxed” – circumstances might have a tendency to break under stress. How does one assess that without putting people under actual stress? The military does it, kind of, during basic training. If a recruit “freaks out” when he or she is in the relatively sheltered environment of Ft. Benning, Georgia (soon to be renamed Ft. Sojourner Truth), they are unlikely to be good candidates for urban warfare in Afghanistan. I'm not aware of anything comparable in police selection and training other than the good-guy/bad-guy section of the shooting range or the mock-up urban environment (I invite correction if I'm wrong about this). And I'm not saying there's a solution to this – at least not an easy one. The military is full of people who looked good all the way up the line, but when put in a deadly, high-risk situation became demoralized and suffered a breakdown – and that's where “atrocities” come from. The military expects difficult – yea, well-nigh impossible – things from people, whereas police work is not as extreme at least in the sense that one is working in familiar territory. But rules of engagement are up for grabs right now, both in the military and for the police. “Sharing and caring” with the natives has always been a dicey affair for the military, and now simply relating to the local citizenry without coming off as “the man” has become a dicey affair for the police. The guy you high-fived with the other day may be the same one lobbing a Molotov cocktail at you this evening.

And by the way, what becomes of the sense of duty and the sense of law and order when your superiors are telling you to stand down and, basically, not do any of the things you have been trained to do, almost up to the reflexive level? This is the sort of demoralization that is driving people out of the policing profession in great numbers. The city/county/state officials who always have a better idea had better start thinking about which ideas will work when the police have all quit or been fired. Like so many other ideas, anarchy has a certain adolescent appeal – freedom! No one giving orders! No one telling you what to do! No curfews! No bedtimes! No jails! No laws! Woodstock! Summerhill! Right... check out “Mad Max” -- that's a much better picture of what real anarchy looks like.

Doom at the Top

The Trump people are already feeling the effects. There is an easy assumption that all you have to do is get elected to the presidency, appoint key subordinates (including cabinet-level posts), get your agenda rolling, and extend your span of control far and wide throughout the bureaucracy and to the farthest corners of the earth, and a new day will dawn. But no – the people at the top generally prefer to stay at the top, where there is sunshine and fresh air, and innumerable “perks”, and either cannot or will not dig deep into the heart of the bureaucracy in order to detect and weed out hostile forces.

Compare it, let's say, to buying an old, rambling, broken-down house with countless rooms, wings, basements, attics, stairways, secret passages, closets, and hallways leading to nowhere – a veritable hive of inactivity, or of activity of the wrong kind. This would pretty much match what happens when a political appointee takes over a government department. And you can move into this house, title deed in hand, assuming that because you're there, your mere presence will suffice to turn things around and cure all the inherent ills. But this is not the case. It's the same house that it was the day before you (ill-advisedly, perhaps) bought it – and unless you hire an army of exterminators to get rid of all the rats, mice, cockroaches, parasites, hangers-on, and subversives, you might as well not even be there... and it will become a source of endless frustration and, ultimately, a tarnished reputation and political defeat.

I have first-hand experience with this. I've seen political appointees come and go. Some of them are just passing through – day trippers on the way to bigger and better things – and they seldom make waves or bother anyone down in the trenches. They are political animals, basically – ambitious, but superficial – lacking a theoretical base of any sort. Smiles and handshakes, and the occasional briefing, are their legal tender, and as long as they can be “large and in charge” they're happy. And this, by the way, holds true no matter which department or agency we're talking about; it's a universal syndrome. No part of the government, no matter how exalted, is immune from this problem or from these people.

And then there's the other kind. Two kinds, actually. The first is relatively benign – they show up with ideas, a program, an agenda, which may involve “draining the swamp” but is more likely to be limited to “good words” about efficiency, cost-effectiveness, eliminating waste, leadership, good management, serving the interests of “customers” and “stakeholders”, and contributing to the accomplishment of the stated mission of the department or agency (assuming that it has a stated mission, and that anyone can remember where they put it). These people can, on rare occasions, do a bit of good, but they are more likely to disrupt things by imposing management fads, leadership theories, and endless surveys and get-togethers for the rank and file (which, by the way, are typically viewed as good things because it's time off work). They may show up in person at some of these confabs, attempting to cajole, inspire, and set an example of good grooming and appropriate business attire. And they may feel that they're doing good, but eventually it dawns on them that nothing has changed – the bureaucracy is every bit as entrenched, rigid, ossified, and inefficient as it was the day they arrived. So they move on, with much waving of handkerchiefs -- “Well, he (she) wasn't bad, he (she) tried, but you know how it is.” -- with a faint smile and chuckle. Back to business as usual!

The second other kind is another matter entirely. It's the most dangerous, vicious animal in the jungle. I'm talking about the political appointee who somehow manages to wind up heading up a department or agency, but who, in fact, hates it and all that it stands for, and therefore hates all the people who work there. How these people get appointed has always been a mystery to me. Are they appointed on purpose, by a president or official who shares their outlook? I think more often it's a matter of their expressing an “interest” in whatever it is – the mission – and also having some sort of alleged “expertise” or at least experience in the area in question. (It would be like a wolf expressing an “interest” in the Department of Sheep.) But their true agenda comes into full bloom on Day One, and it's as if they're wreaking vengeance on everyone for some real or imagined slight or offense. (Think of the stereotypical 90-pound weakling suddenly being put in charge of an agency full of all of the bullies who have ever kicked sand in his face.) And of course you can count on them to bring along an army of, basically, goons and hit-men (hit-women) to aid in the pursuit. (These latter are the true mercenaries and sociopaths in the system. They are allowed to run amok for a time, and when they have wreaked a suitable level of destruction they move on to other pursuits, either elsewhere in the system or in the private sector, leaving scorched earth and a battlefield strewn with bodies in their wake.)

But does the bureaucracy take whatever these people dish out lying down? Not a bit of it. They may shrink from open defiance, but they do have ways of coping – many of which resemble the behavior of the slaves of old, who would bow, scrape, and flash smiles at their master while at the same time plotting ways to thwart his every wish and, in extreme cases, exterminate him. And believe me, the meek and lowly are tuned in to the foibles and weaknesses of their oppressors, and do not hesitate to blow whistles or drop dimes when the time is ripe. The slightest sign of vulnerability is a signal for the peasant revolt to begin.

So what this adds up to is that a political appointee who is magically placed at the top of a very large pyramid may have good intentions, evil intentions, or see it as a mere stepping stone, but in all cases the lowly serfs down in the trenches will go about their business as if he (she) doesn't exist – which, on any given day and for all intents and purposes, they don't. And yet it's these people – the army of faceless serfs – that has a lot more to do with the operations of the organization, and its success or failure, than the member of the privileged elite at the top of the totem pole. They are masters in the art of passive-aggressiveness, for one thing – throwing the occasional monkey wrench into the works so that things go somewhat wrong, but no one can be singled out for blame. They are studied practitioners of the great slowdown, or of working to the letter – doing the minimum (or even less, but appearing to do the minimum) – not enough to earn a bad rating or reprimand, but enough to make the operation at least temporarily grind to a halt.

And the motives for all of this are many and varied. There may be genuine resentment toward “that political type who doesn't know anything about what we do here”, or it may be a more global, baseline resentment toward a stifling system – one that offers job security in exchange for, basically, giving up all self-respect and ambition. (“Hope and change” would be the least appropriate motto possible for the government bureaucracy. I question whether it's even that realistic for political appointees. There are way too many people hanging around Washington looking for a plum job, and way too few plum jobs to go around, even though the bureaucracy expands each and every day.)

And so far I'm just talking about systemic issues. If you add political considerations to the mix, things get even worse. For starters, the bureaucracy is staffed with, guess what, human beings. And those human beings, as dull and listless as many of them appear to be, nonetheless have political leanings, loyalties, and points of view. And this tends to be correlated with the department or agency in question. Nor surprisingly, people who work for the Department of Labor, EPA, and HUD tend to be on the liberal/progressive/activist side, and people who work for defense and the intel agencies tend to be more conservative, although this is by no means guaranteed. (I'm sure you can come up with many other examples.) Now, when the political appointee who takes over at the top is from, let's say, Party A, and he (she) takes over a department or agency whose employees are more or less in synch with Party A's platform, things go along fairly well (with all of the caveats described above, of course). But let a Party A appointee take over a department or agency staffed with Party B types, and you can expect passive-aggressive behavior nigh unto gridlock. And it may not even be the case that the appointee is one of the “slash and burn” types – they may merely be trying to redirect the mission and efforts of the department more in the direction that their political convictions dictate. (In the case of defense, the Republicans will tend to favor weapons system acquisition, combat training, and readiness, while Democrats will tend to favor social experimentation and providing jobs.) (I note that actually winning wars has become passe as a motive for pretty much everyone.)

With all of the above in mind, the miracle is not that the bureaucracy is as wasteful and ineffective as it is, but that things aren't worse. Like the few righteous men in Sodom and Gomorrah, there is a modicum of competence and conscientiousness in the bureaucracy, particularly among those who are able to largely ignore politics, power struggles, infighting, and game-playing. (They must also be self-motivated and have self-esteem independent of their circumstances.) Any government agency has a few people in it who just want to get things done, and they are typically swimming against the current. Others may be more or less neutral -- “paper pushers” -- neither adding nor deleting value (other than encumbering a position and collecting a salary). And others may be “part of the problem” -- creatures of the system who have been conditioned (through a distorted array of rewards and punishments) to seek their own interests and undermine the interests of others -- to play a zero-sum game at best, and more often a negative-sum game.  I used to wonder if these “types” could have ever worked anywhere except in the government, where there is no profit motive, where it's nearly impossible to fire anyone, and where “process” typically takes precedence over “product”. One might as well ask if drug addicts are born that way; I think they are created, and that the system creates bureaucrats. They could have been some other way, but that fork in the road has receded into the mists of time, so here they are... and anyone who comes in at the top had better take them into account, because on any given day they are the ones who are really in charge.

Ayn Rand, Call on Line One

Who hasn't indulged in fantasies that begin with the words, “If I were president...” -- or dictator, tyrant, whatever? Who hasn't made a list of things they would do on Day One of their presidency? Well, I don't know about you, but my first order of business would be to dissolve, disband, cancel, and basically demolish the worst piles of bureaucratic do-do in Washington, and at the top of the list – and, let's face it, there is plenty of competition for the top spot – but really, can there be any doubt? The top of the list would have to be none other than HUD – the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is a child of LBJ's “Great Society” -- and, by the way, where is that Great Society nowadays? Have you seen it lately? I certainly haven't. I think it died somewhere in Detroit – or maybe Chicago, Baltimore, or even Washington itself. It was, of course, a liberal pipe dream – the notion that if you throw enough money in the general direction of a problem, that problem will go away... and the problem in question in this case was “urban blight”, “inner cities”, “decay”, and so on – all of which had powerful racial implications. The reflexive action in the glory days of “urban renewal” was that all you had to do was tear down the “ghetto”, build “projects” or subsidized housing where it stood, and... well, this was not part of the original vision, but it's the way things turned out – move all the surplus population out to suburban “developments”.   (Urban renewal always results in surplus people, simply because planned developments, even of the high-rise type, wind up holding a lot fewer people per acre than the old, ramshackle ghetto tenements.  So the surplus have to be warehoused in outlying areas.)  And to see how that all turned out, I offer four simple words: Prince George's County, Maryland.

See, the conceit at that time was that “ghetto” -- AKA “black neighborhoods” -- automatically equaled “misery”. What the liberal think-tankers and urban planners failed to see was that these neighborhoods, as scruffy and edgy as they were, were nonetheless home to coherent communities – to cultures – not of the lily-white kind, but of a kind that, in many ways, met the needs of those who lived there. Tear them down, and build sterile apartment (both low- and high-rise) developments in their place, and you not only fragment the communities and the culture, but you create something much worse in their place – you, in effect, warehouse blacks in new ghettos, which turn out to be much more violent, dysfunctional, and drug-ridden than the old ones because they totally lack psychological, cultural, and physical roots. You create what, in effect, are prisons without walls (except for psychological ones).

And there is nothing theoretical about this – it happened, time and time again, in cities across the country, and rare were the ones that managed to successfully resist the Godzilla-like rampage of the urban renewalists. The bottom line, when thinking about outfits like HUD, is: If you seek its monument, look around – in cities like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and so on. But as always in politics, the rhetoric overcame the reality, and once people realized that their birthright had been confiscated and replaced with a mess of pottage, it was too late.

This is all by way of background. Objectively, HUD is the most ill-conceived, most totally failed, wasteful, and fraud-prone of all government agencies. It has failed not only the country and the taxpayers, but the very people it was supposedly designed to serve. It has been instrumental – perhaps essential – in creating a permanent socio-economic underclass mired in poverty, drugs, and violence. It needs to be laid waste, and its mass of bureaucrats driven from the seats of power – by which I mean, throw them out of D.C. and close and lock the gates behind them. And no “bumping” -- i.e. moving into slots in other agencies based on seniority. Out! Period.

But! On rare occasions, a glimmer of wisdom emanates from even the darkest corners of the collective state. A recent “discovery” -- not that the information wasn't already there for all to see – concerns people living in subsidized housing whose income exceeds the level required to qualify for said housing. In other words, they earn too much to qualify for this particular variety of handout. And of course the initial response from HUD was to say that, well, you can't just throw people out of public housing because their household income rises above a certain point, because “evicting them could destabilize their progress toward self-sufficiency.” In other words, they might be earning decent money now, but who knows how predictable or stable that is? They might wind up back at poverty level any minute, for any number of reasons. We have to be sure that this higher income level is for real, and not just a momentary phenomenon – like, someone won a lottery or something.

Well, isn't this true of a lot of people? I mean... a person may be middle-class today, but then lose their job, or make a bad investment, or lose a lawsuit, and then they find themselves in the strange new world of poverty, and instantly qualify for subsidized housing. In which case, why not provide subsidized housing to everyone, just to insure that no one falls through the safety net? You see where this is going.

Well, as it happens, HUD reversed itself on this issue, and is now “urging public housing authorities across the country to kick out tenants who make too much money to qualify for government subsidies” -- which, I guess, means that said authorities have to get hold of everyone's tax return... or at least the returns of the ones who drive a Jaguar to work every day. (And by the way, who earns close to $500,000 a year and yet is satisfied to remain living in subsidized housing? Who are these people?)

But the point about “de-stabilizing their progress toward self-sufficiency” -- well, that's pure bureaucratic-speak. A non-liberal (a species that does not exist within the confines of HUD) would call it “punishing achievement”, and it's an interesting point. If one accepts that it's the government's job to establish, and guarantee, a certain minimal standard of living – including housing – then the question shifts to one of who should qualify. And we all know (or should) that household income is far from static – it can go up or down, quite drastically at times, depending on the various fortunes of those who contribute to it. And aside from the stability question, do we really want to punish people for doing better? This question comes up all the time in the more general discussion of welfare, of course – the notion that we not only “punish” people by forcing them to seek employment, but also punish them if they should happen to land a decently-paying job – to the point where many in the dependent class (who are not as stupid as their liberal overlords would like to think) have figured out that they're better off not working. (As usual, liberal social policy is predicated on the premise that the recipients of government – i.e., taxpayer – charity are stupid. And while this may occasionally be the case, it's much more likely that they display a steep learning curve when it comes to gaming the system. If there are any “chumps” in our society, it's not ghetto dwellers, but wage earners who persist in voting for politicians who intend to squeeze as much cash out of them as possible and turn it over to someone else.)

Let me tell you a little story that has some bearing on the matter. During my time with the feds, there was a program by which a minority- or woman-owned business would receive preferential treatment when it came to contracting. It was not so much a matter of lowering standards as of eliminating, or reducing, some of the bureaucratic red tape that characterizes the government contracting process – identify a bidder as minority- or woman-owned, and you wound up on a fast track. “Other things being equal”, they would land a contract more readily than other bidders – and, of course, there were plenty of ways to game the system, but that's not the point I want to make.

In one particular case, we starting using a woman-owned business for certain types of support functions; they were a new outfit, and no one knew at the time whether they would work out. (They were, in fact, one of those proverbial “kitchen table” outfits started and staffed, at least partly, by housewives.) Well, as it turned out, they were very good at what they did – so good, in fact, that we kept renewing and expanding their contract year after year, until... and this is where the self-defeating nature of the bureaucracy comes in. Because of the terms of the contract, they became too successful – too big, too stable, too much cash flow. It was no longer enough to be woman-owned; they had passed the milestone at which that no longer mattered. So from then on they had to compete on an equal footing with everyone else – which would still have been OK, because they were very good. But, lo and behold, along came a new cohort of minority- and woman-owned businesses, all hungry, all anxious to establish a spot at the government trough, and guess what, the formerly-disadvantaged outfit started to lose bids to the new, still-needy ones – and some of those were, quite frankly, wildly incompetent and staffed by idiots. (It was at this point that we realized how really lucky we had been with the first outfit.) So, basically, we had to start accepting sub-standard work in the name of compassion – and this, I would say, typifies government operations at all levels. (And one might say, well, but isn't every government program a jobs program, after all? And where does quality of work fit into that? The answer is, it doesn't. But on any given day it's more pleasant to be working with competent people than with clueless ones.  And it's more satisfying to turn out, or at least oversee, a good product than a mess.  But this would be -- I hasten to add -- an atypical attitude among the bureaucracy.)  

So you see, preferences... set-asides... quotas... etc.... giveth and they taketh away. And quality of work is no object. As I've said before, every government program is a jobs program – no exceptions! But within that iron rule, some people wind up more qualified for jobs than others, and it has very little to do with experience, competence, or anything else other than being in the right place at the right time (and the right gender, race, ethnic group, and size – and, soon, sexual preference).

So to get back to HUD – I actually understand their point about not punishing achievement, even though they'll never call it that. Someone down there on 7^th Street SW has a brain that functions to the extent of questioning why people should be rewarded for non-activity but punished for self-improvement. And yet, overall, the government juggernaut, which is designed to provide jobs, will be scantly swayed by this rare insight.

When Bureaus Drop Their Drawers

It seems that one government agency after another is falling into disgrace after being exposed for incompetence . In some cases, even some “senior management” has been let go, so you know things are getting serious. And we're not talking about agencies no one has ever heard of, or loser agencies like HUD, or agencies populated by homicidal maniacs like BATF. These are serious outfits with a serious, and publicly acknowledged, mission... and while the mission may be unconstitutional in some or all cases, at least it is designed to answer a tangible need, and its failure has tangible consequences. In the last few months, the following have been shown to have feet of clay: The IRS; the VA; the Secret Service; and, most recently, the CDC. And this does not include agencies like the FDA and EPA, which chronically operate under a well-deserved cloud of suspicion.

Now, one thing you will find in nearly all of these cases is politicization – or, let's say, over-politicization, since no government agency can possibly be entirely free of politics, because, after all, it was created by politicians for political reasons, and answers to politicians. I'm referring to the process by which political considerations begin to erode, eat into, and eventually override the original mission, to the point where the agency and its functions turn into a political arm of the party in power. And there is nothing new about this, I hasten to add; the phenomenon was already in full bloom during the New Deal. But in these times, places that should be “above all that” are showing that, far from being above it all, they are mired in it.


And the thing is... well, I guess we're still naïve and childlike when it comes to these things, because there is always great shock and dismay with each new revelation. Perhaps we should be more cynical and world-weary, the way the Europeans are; they expect corruption and self-serving in government, and when it happens it's, ho-hum, pass the vino. But we persist in expecting better – in expecting our leaders to act like... well, like exceptional people rather than the way ordinary slobs would act if you gave them a huge amount of money and power, with little or no accountability and rewards that have nothing to do with performance.  We have not, in other words, fully come to terms with human nature and its inevitable corrupting effects on any sort of collective activity, government being the first and foremost. It's not that politicians are inevitably worse than anyone else (though some seem to be), it's that they are weak, venal, and easily seduced. For them, power is an opportunity for self-advancement and vainglory, and if the public accidentally gets served once in a while, well, that's OK too, but we can't have too much of it, because then they'll only expect more.


The other thing to bear in mind as these stories trickle down from the seats of power is this: What is the nature of bureaucracy, and of bureaucrats? Well, for starters, Job #1 of any government agency is self-preservation, and some of them spend the bulk of their resources on that one thing – just staying in business, keeping their jobs, perks, and pay. There is a “mission” somewhere, of course – you know, the ostensible reason the agency and its program were created – but it is easily obscured by day-to-day survival needs. And why is this? Well, it starts with budgets, and at any given time every government agency is working on a handful of budgets: Executing this year's, finalizing next year's, proposing budgets for 2, 3, 5, 10 years out, and so on. And when it comes to execution, there is such a thing as “budget defense”; if you're not spending this year's money fast enough, someone is going to come along and take it away from you – and take it from me, there are people in the government whose primary function is to keep an eye on the budgets of nearby (in organizational or mission terms) agencies to see who might be ripe for the plucking.  And when they spot an easy mark, they go whining to someone up the line and say "Hey, those guys aren't spending their money, and here we are with all sorts of wonderful programs that are underfunded.  Waaah!"  And it gets results.


Then, on top of budgets, we have personnel issues – authorized positions or “slots” -- and the main goal there is to maintain grade level (which implies salary). And again, as with budget, this is a 24/7/365 job; it never ends. But just maintaining positions isn't enough either – you also have to maintain actual live bodies. But – you might say – aren't these the same thing? No, not in government. You can have authorized slots but no authorization to actually fill them... or, less frequently, you can be authorized to hire people but have no authorized slots to put them in.  And this is usually because the different types of authorization are done by completely different agencies.


Incredible, you say? Grossly inefficient? No argument – but I guarantee that this is how the government works (or doesn't work) on a day-to-day basis. 

And we still haven't gotten around to the actual mission! First we have to talk about hiring – and a government manager can't just go out and hire anyone he or she wants for a given position. Oh no. There are lists... there are people referred to as “stoppers”, i.e. forced out of another agency because of a reduction in force, and they become first in line for your opening, even if they are clearly less qualified than any number of other candidates. Then there is the “point system” where you get points for being a veteran, or for having any of a myriad of handicaps or demographic (i.e. “minority”) characteristics. I used to joke that the ideal job applicant in government would be a lesbian albino Inuit paraplegic – and this is not as exaggerated as you think. A person with those credentials could get a job anywhere in government, with any job description, at any rank, no questions asked – and why? Because the “human resources” office of the agency would get to check off multiple “affirmative action” boxes and look fantastic when the next audit rolled around.


So – if that's the impenetrable jungle called “hiring” in the government, what about “firing”? That's an easy one – there's no such thing. Oh, technically there are policies and procedures when it comes to “termination”, but the requirements are so onerous than managers are typically unwilling to even start. And this, by the way, holds true whether the employee is a union member or not. (I do recall one manager who spent most of his time for an entire year in order to get rid of one incompetent subordinate. Did the mission suffer as a result? Perhaps – but he (the manager) said that, hey, if that's what the system demands, that's what it's gonna get.) What is more typical is that the “dead wood”, “retired in place” types are put in a corner (figuratively, and sometimes literally as well) where they won't get in the way, and allowed to wait out their time undisturbed. The risk in this case is that a given office in an agency may become a kind of rest home or day-care center for these types, with the result that the entire office is sidelined and its mission (assuming it even had one) is transferred over to a group whose members still have a pulse.

And these are, by and large, threats from without; I won't burden you with a discussion of the everyday internal plotting, scheming, undercutting, and backbiting, because I don't think that government is at all unique in this regard.  


OK, so... where were we? Oh yes, the mission. Now, assuming there is any time left after all the above considerations are dealt with, the competent or at least semi-competent remnant has an actual job to do. So what can possibly go wrong at this point? Well... this is where politics rears its ugly head.  Because, as I said, every program in every agency has some sort of political implications, some more obvious than others.  And if you doubt this, just try terminating a program or putting an agency out to pasture -- then you'll find out where the vested interests are, and they are invariably vocal in their protests, and know exactly who to protest to.

But the real trouble starts when someone in Congress, say, develops an "interest" in your program, and decides that they need a briefing, or to make a visit -- and these events often result in some sort of, let's say, "suggestions" as to how to "improve" the program, or how to "restate" the statistics in order to support a political agenda.  And this is usually a gradual, erosive -- or corrosive -- process, and with each cycle through the political checkpoint the agency and its programs become more and more politicized, until what they are accomplishing (if anything) is little more than validating someone's political stance.  And when some snooper starts asking questions, we see the well-practiced process of "damage control" AKA "covering your butt".  Damage control becomes necessary when an agency is, basically, caught with its pants down (usually not literally).  It's sort of like the old saying, "You can't cheat an honest man" -- an agency that is doing its job properly should not have to cover its butt, but one that is politicized will spend an inordinate amount of time doing just that. 

So this is that stage that the agencies mentioned above are at.  They cooperated in their own demise as honest brokers -- in many cases starting years or decades ago -- and now that they're caught and exposed, it's as if all of the misdeeds happened at once, overnight.  But this is not the case; it's the result of a long, drawn-out process.  The deeper one digs, the more clear it becomes that the corruption is chronic and profound -- and the main question at that point is, can this agency be saved?  Or would we be better off just closing it down and starting over?  (This has been seriously proposed with regard to the IRS, for example.)  The problem with that, based on historical evidence, is that you can close an agency down but the people in it will just scuttle off and hide somewhere else, and continue to cause damage.  Plus, that original mission may still be needed, and it will be transplanted over to a new agency or turned over to some other agency, which starts the cycle over again. 

People who say that the main problem is the size of government are ignoring the things that inevitably happen in government, regardless of size -- and these are based on human fallibility and concupiscence.  These things can never be entirely eliminated, but a combination of reducing size and clarifying missions would certainly help -- along with simply closing agencies that no longer have a mission that makes sense, or that have made such a shambles of their mission that it must be declared "mission impossible".  You can't stop the politicization process, but making it possible to not only fire people but actually force them out of the government once and for all would be a major step. 

Then there's the question of term limits.  (Did I mention that I had a dream?) 

Don't Blame Me, I Just Work Here

Herewith, a brief note concerning the “blame line” for the “undies bomber” who threatened to out-Grinch the Grinch on Christmas Day. “Intelligence and State Department officials should be disciplined for their roles in a chain of failures”, etc. And, “... some people have to be held accountable”... and those involved “have to be disciplined so that (the mistakes) never happen again.” So... who are the solons who are making these stern pronouncements? Why, none other than Senator Joe Lieberman, Israel's man in Washington, and Senator John McCain – who would have had us nuking Tehran before he dropped in on his first inaugural ball. Yes – these are what pass for the voices of responsibility these days. Plus – aside from the massive hypocrisy, you would think they would know better than to expect any government official – ever, at any time in history – to take responsibility for anything – I mean anything bad. Either these guys are amazingly naïve, or they're just pretending – the way the Republicans pretended to be upset about Harry Reid's comments about Obama. Is it possible that they think the primary task of the intelligence agencies and the State Department is to protect Americans and American interests? Don't we have sufficient proof that this is not – assuming it ever was – the case? No, these are self-contained empires where growth in staffing, power, influence, and especially budgets is Job One – and the stated mission (you know, the reason they were set up in the first place) is... well, it's not even on the map most of the time. The State Department specializes in getting us embroiled in conflicts all over the world, that have no discernible bearing on national security or welfare... and where they can't get us into an actual shooting war, they manage to offend everyone so severely that it amounts to the same thing. And as for the intelligence agencies, well! They basically constitute a parallel government – the difference being, none of the officials is elected or subject to recall by the citizenry, and the term of office is... however long they feel like staying, basically. They play the intelligence “game” -- but when the bottom line spells disaster, they simply shrug and go on about their business, basically daring anyone to try cutting back on their resources. And this is what has happened again, for the umpteenth time, in Undiesbombergate – it was “oops, my bad”, or not even “my bad”, but just “oops” -- and barely that. And there's nothing like a narrowly-averted disaster (even when they did nothing to avert it) to bring out paeans of praise for the “intelligence community” and its “brave and dedicated personnel” from the president and Congress. (Almost makes you think the intel types “have something” on all these clowns, doesn't it? Well, they do.) So yeah – no one is going to go in and clean house. As a European diplomat once said, “Never explain; never apologize”. Of all the advice ever to come down the pike, this is the one that has been taken to heart the most by the intel and State types. Never explain – because the unwashed wouldn't understand – and never apologize – because that just weakens your position, and what do we want, to have to apologize every time something goes wrong? Forget it! So the wagons get circled, the wall of silence goes up, and goofballs like Lieberman and McCain are left scratching their wrinkled heads. But at least McCain showed a bit of insight when he called the ploy “we're all responsible therefore no one is responsible”. Yeah, John – it's called “the government”. Get used to it; you wanted to run it, remember?