Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

One keeps hearing these complaints about the "bureaucracy" or "unions" or whatever.

I would like to see more interest in the idea that sometimes what's wrong isn't poor civil servants who need to be replaced, but an overall bad idea that must be dropped or changed. The same publication -- The National Review -- cited in this blog posting did exactly that 11 years ago with regard to the war on drugs. See The War on Drugs Is Lost.

Posted by Chuck Divine at March 14, 2007 06:07 AM

The bureaucracy live to serve itself. It knows that political appointees will come and go while they will last forever. If an appointee becomes a nuisance, he will be subverted until he is hounded from office.

Posted by Larry J at March 14, 2007 06:41 AM

A long time ago HUD had a short lived program where any employee that could take up the slack of a retiring employee would get a portion of that former employees pay. I was amazed to see it happen, and thought it was the perfect way to drive the bureaucracy toward efficiency without layoffs. That was more than fifteen years ago. At the time I didn’t know anyone there with more than half a job. Had the program continued to this day and expanded to other branches /departments we would have a lean government today.

Posted by JJS at March 14, 2007 08:06 AM

One of the common sense management and hiring reforms that Bush II tried to implement with the federal bureaucracy would seem to make sense to anyone that has had to make a living in the real world:

"Employees will receive raises based on market conditions and managerial evaluations of their performance."

Supply and demand! Performance-based raises! Nah, let’s just let the federal workforce stick with a communist model.

American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage. "This isn't any improvement. This is gutting the civil service." Colleen Kelley, president of NTEU, said the union would "strongly oppose any efforts to extend similar regulations throughout the government."

Posted by John Kavanagh at March 14, 2007 08:10 AM

Congress is democratic, the White House and military are dictatorships, the courts are an aristocracy, and the rest of the Executive branch is bureaucratic. This multitude of differing approaches to management is necessary to avoid the diseases associated with any one of them overwhelming the entire state, and is integral to the function of checks and balances.

It's also a matter of practical necessity: Remaking the entire Executive branch from top to bottom every time a new administration arrives would leave the federal government in utter chaos for years after each changeover, making it essentially nonfunctional while experienced professionals are replaced with incompetent partisan lackeys or vice-versa.

As for this irrational worship of corporate management, I guess you haven't noticed all the companies sunk into the ground by parasitic executives who gorge themselves regardless of performance, let alone the ones who knock over Fortune 500 companies like vending machines. The very last thing we need in our government are more kleptomaniacs like Dick Cheney.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 14, 2007 08:17 AM

I suppose hiring Incompetent Hacks to run all the
agencies didn't help and firing the competent and
well-meaning set the tone.

example 1) Mike Brown. The biggest hack in town was running FEMA.

2) Treasury Sec Paul Oneal: Competent, well meaning, fired for
saying the budget deficit was a problem.

3) Lawrence Summers: Council Economic Advisers: Fired for
saying the Iraq war could cost $300Billion.

As for Clinton, the executive ran smoothly, major league
improvements filtered down. Clinton cleaned up purchasing,
got everyone in the feds on the internet and with e-mail,
and pushed for more commercial real estate operations.

Posted by anonymous at March 14, 2007 08:25 AM

Heh!

Too hard to hire good employees and too hard to fire bad ones.

Yup. Its far better to hire those people who donate to your campaign fund and fire those who do not.

Of course, GOP politicians would NEVER do that, even if Democratic ones would.

/ snark

Patronage is why these laws exist and patronage is why these laws should remain.

Posted by Bill White at March 14, 2007 08:32 AM

Rand is spot on with this:

And anyone who thinks that things would be better if we changed parties in the White House are deluding themselves.

BOTH parties engage in patronage when given the chance. That is why we need strong civil service laws that restrict the powers of elected leaders, from any party.

Posted by Bill White at March 14, 2007 08:39 AM

Posted by anonymous at March 14, 2007 08:25 AM

Good people certianly help and this administration has been plauged with "its fair share" of incompetents or people fired for being competent.

Having said that...Senator Fred's point remains. The instruments of national power are more or less broken.

I dont blame Bush for 9/11 because I think that Gore would have been caught in the same exact situation....but there were a collosal series of intel and other failures in Clinton's era that were only "not so bad" because there were semi competent people in charge. AND events didnt sum to a complete implosion.

We really need to remake the executive branch of government very very badly.

Robert

Posted by Robert Oler at March 14, 2007 08:48 AM

Anonymous should restrict comments to something he has knowledge of (apparently rather little). The Clinton years were hardly the Golden Age of improvements to federal agencies. Gore's "Reinvention of Gov't" resulted in a lot of wasted effort by agencies to chase all the new management fads. Net improvement was about zero. Lots of new names for the same old stuff. And you think Clinton pushed through e-mail and internet? You think that wasn't coming no matter who was driving the bus? The primary aim of any bureaucracy is to perpetuate itself, and Civil Service is very good example. It all comes down to saving rice bowls, taxpayer be damned. After 14 yrs of working for the Feds, I quit in disgust.

Posted by Chuck at March 14, 2007 09:05 AM

Anonymous should restrict comments to something he has knowledge of (apparently rather little).

But then he'd have almost nothing to say (not that that's a bad thing...). As it is now, both he and Swiderski are just graffiti artists here (and not very good ones).

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 14, 2007 09:08 AM

"As it is now, both he and Swiderski are just graffiti artists here (and not very good ones)."

Charnel house barker, grammarian, pedant, and now art critic? Pick an obnoxious and stick with it, pretty please.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 14, 2007 09:46 AM

Charnel house barker, grammarian, pedant, and now art critic? Pick an obnoxious and stick with it, pretty please.

Aren't you the individual who claimed he was banned from this site?

I guess that assertion was no more accurate than many of your others.

Posted by Stephen Kohls at March 14, 2007 11:12 AM

Hey Chuck

I remember during the reinventing government fad that NASA was doing a lot of "improvements" where they did a reorganization, changed the names of a lot of organizations and basically shuffled most of the office staff (almost 100%) from their offices to the new ones.

When I remarked that if they really wanted to save money all they had to do is move the nameplates and not the people I got a lot of dirty looks.

It was worth it.

Posted by Dennis Ray Wingo at March 14, 2007 11:20 AM

"Aren't you the individual who claimed he was banned from this site?"

Yes, and I had been. Rand denies knowledge of it, but I guess "mistakes were made." :D

"I guess that assertion was no more accurate than many of your others."

Indeed, no more accurate than any other accurate statement.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 14, 2007 11:21 AM

Simberg does leave off the list of Hacks
GW Bush has filled the executive with.

Nepotism, third rate minds and ideologues.

II'm not surprised Simberg won't address that issue.

Posted by anonymous at March 14, 2007 12:09 PM

My wife is a state employee. She's been working for the state just about 18 months. She was hired because the "work load" was too heavy in this department. What she found out was, that there were just people in that office who refused to work, or do certain tasks, as opposed to a heavy workload. She spends a good third of her time looking for work or projects to do.

I can't imagine that there is a better work ethic in any other gub'ment office or department. She does about 1/2 of the number of support tickets now, as she did when she work in private companies. Her bosses think she walks on water because her name is on the majority of the completed work sheets. Her "co-workers" are surly, nasty, and hesitant to give her any information because she makes them look bad.

I don't care where you work, if you refuse to do the job for which you were hired, your @ss should go out the door!

Posted by Steve at March 14, 2007 12:11 PM

This was one of the main reasons that I left NASA. Even though NASA is one of the best places to work as a civil servant, it will never move forward until this handicap is overcome. I saw plenty of excellent people who couldn't be hired and many civil servants who should have been fired.

If you want to be a world class organization in any arena, you have to be able to make changes in your personnel. Right now we have Congress passing legislation to prevent Griffin from RIF'ing anybody. So how is he supposed to effectively manage a large organization without doing that. Heck, even the military can decide they want to downsize, so why not NASA?

Mazoo(former JSC guy)

Posted by Mazoo at March 14, 2007 12:23 PM

Simberg does leave off the list of Hacks
GW Bush has filled the executive with.

Yes, it was so much better in the nineties, when we had a former bar bouncer in charge of White House security, Anonymous Moron.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 14, 2007 12:23 PM

This is not the problem or part of the problem. Its is a symptom of the problem. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, 'It's the incentives ...'. Otherwise, why would an outmoded bureaucracy exist? The problems are systemic, don't expect anything to get significantly better until these bureaucracies are reduced, or better yet in many cases, eliminated.

Posted by John C. Williams at March 14, 2007 12:30 PM

John,

I would agree with you about reducing, but I don't realistically see eliminating bureaucracies in this country. To that end, I have also suggested breaking NASA up into three parts. You have one agency trying to do three somewhat complementary tasks: Space Exploration, Earth Research, and Aeronautics. If I had my choice, we would break up NASA and create a separate agency for each with a clear goal.

SEA: Space Exploration Agency
ERA: Earth Research Agency
ARA: Aeronautics Research Agency

At least that way, it would be harder for Congress to keep robbing one area to pay for the other without it being obvious to the taxpayers.

Posted by Mazoo at March 14, 2007 12:38 PM

...the White House and military are dictatorships...

Welcome back Squidward...

The White House is an edifice, a structure inhabited by an elected official and his family. The military is a group of volunteers that have taken an oath to protect the United States of America against enemies foreign and domestic. In essence, followers...

The White House is a structure, not a dictatorship.

The military is a group of volunteers following lawful orders, not a dictatorship.

Rand would be a good Spongebob because he sees things as they are and comments. You make a good Squidward because you hate your neighbors and can't find a way to be happy unless you complain.
Geez, this is better than watching the show!

Posted by Mac at March 14, 2007 01:01 PM

Rand: "both he and Swiderski are just graffiti artists "

A better term would be "blog insurgents".

Posted by Cecil Trotter at March 14, 2007 01:29 PM

A better term would be "blog insurgents".

Well, if that's the case, I wish they were suicide bombers...

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 14, 2007 01:36 PM

Blogosites as in Blog Parasites. That is what the Dynamic Duo of stupid are.

Our own Transterrestrial version of 'Dumb and Dumber'.

Posted by Mike Puckett at March 14, 2007 05:31 PM

Large bureaucracies, large companies, anything bigger than a certain size is like a huge piece of code. The only way to fix it is to break the code down into functions with at most six to seven requirements of each function. And at each level up the reviewer should only see a set of six or seven functions. Personally when dealing with someone elses crappy code, the first thing I've done is to break it down into functions where each function is the size of a page. I don't remember who it was but someone writing about structured programming originally said the same thing. The average human can only handle about six or seven thoughts at a time. I think the problem with big companies and big government bureaucracies is that there is often no good way to restructure them in a manner akin to the code problem. Heck, it's hard enough to fix bad code. It's complexity theory I guess..maybe someone who knows more about this can talk about it.

Posted by Offside at March 14, 2007 07:17 PM

"To that end, I have also suggested breaking NASA up into three parts."
Posted by Mazoo at March 14, 2007 12:23 PM

I don't believe that Bureaucracies are inherently evil. Institutions are created to meet the specific needs of the people. Initially, you will find that most bureaucracies are well meaning and perform their duties respectively. It is when mission creep beyond their original charter sets in then things start to get dicey.

Thats why I think the resolution that Mazoo proposes would be asking for trouble. Each one of those splinter organizations would eventually grow into there own nebulous monsters. People would reach a point where they would call for the elimination of 2 of the 3 and propose to call it something like NASA.

Posted by Josh Reiter at March 14, 2007 07:19 PM

Simberg invokes the Bush Defense.

"Clinton did worse".

Sure, Rand, Show me again where you aren't a
Bush stooge?

Posted by anonymous at March 14, 2007 08:24 PM

Mac: "The White House is an edifice"

And an institution. That's why letterhead from outbuildings still says "The White House."

Mac: "Welcome back Squidward..."

Thanks, Nickelodiot.

Mac: "The military is a group of volunteers that have taken an oath to protect the United States of America against enemies foreign and domestic."

Yes, with dictatorship as its management model.

Mac: "The White House is a structure, not a dictatorship."

Dictatorships have plenty of structure. :D

Mac: "Rand would be a good Spongebob because he sees things as they are and comments."

How to put this delicately? Rand could look at Dachau and see Disneyland, or vice-versa depending on the political context.

Mac: "You make a good Squidward because you hate your neighbors and can't find a way to be happy unless you complain."

Actions don't have consequences in cartoons, Nickelodiot, but they do in the real world. Rand and those who agree with him don't understand that, and seemingly don't care, and that would offend anyone's sense of decency.

Cecil: "A better term would be 'blog insurgents'."

An even better term would be "adult supervision."

Rand: "Well, if that's the case, I wish they were suicide bombers..."

Ask me to leave any time you want, Rambo. Nobody's got a gun to your head.

Rancid Cheeseball: "Blogosites as in Blog Parasites."

Oooo, concatenation. Looks like someone's paying attention to their Reading Rainbow.

Rancid Cheeseball: "That is what the Dynamic Duo of stupid are."

Word has it they're also doodyheads, poopy faces, and cootie catchers.

Rancid Cheeseball: "Our own Transterrestrial version of 'Dumb and Dumber'."

One guy watches Nickelodeon and the other watches Jim Carrey movies....you've assembled a real crack team of Mensa candidates here, Rand.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 14, 2007 11:02 PM

he and Swiderski

Rand, they're multiplying.

Posted by McGehee at March 15, 2007 04:45 AM

Rand, they're multiplying.

No, they're not. BS has been here before. He does bang out more words. Besides having BDS, BS is a major hypocrit and liar.

Posted by Leland at March 15, 2007 10:50 AM

I've been wondering: Will blogs eventually replace bars?

Posted by Norm at March 18, 2007 02:19 AM

Bars are for picking up women with low self-esteem, and blogs are for bragging about it.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at March 18, 2007 04:59 AM

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