Bureaucracies Try to imagine the affect on the United States without places such as the Centers for Disease Control, NASA, U.S. Army, police departments, Coast Guard, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Social Security Administration, and the State Department. These organizations are essential to our government and our society in the United States. All though they are all distinct in their own ways, they do have one aspect that they share. They are all bureaucracies and the people who work for them are called bureaucrats. “Bureaucrats, despite their terrible reputation, perform valuable, even life-saving services. The bureaucracy is what makes government
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Certainly one person cannot control “… 2.7 million civilian bureaucrats, 1.6 million military personal, and an unknown number of private contractors” (Morone and Kersh 420), that is too big of a task for one person to fulfill. The answer to this daunting task is the people, the president, the Congress, and interests groups all control bureaucracies. Overhead democracy deepens our understanding of who controls bureaucracies: “… the people elect presidents who, through their appointees, control the bureaucracy from the top” (Morone and Kersh 421). Additionally, Congress has control over bureaucracies by influencing them through four powers: funding, oversight, authorization, and reorganization. Congress has the power to control the federal budget, this means they also control bureaucracies by funding programs that they approve of and refusing to fund the ones they disapprove of. Next, bureaucracies are also controlled by congress through the “…oversight power to supervise the executive branch, including both White House and federal bureaucratic operations” (Morone and Kersh 422). Thirdly, the power of authorization means, “Congress wields the power to amend programs or even deny their reauthorization” Lastly, Congress has the power to reorganize the “…structure and nature of executive-branch organizations” (Morone and Kersh 422). Finally, interest groups can also have an influence on bureaucracies. They …show more content…
The lists of bureaucracies above are just a few examples of bureaucracies in the United States. In fact bureaucracies consists of millions of Americans: “ U.S. national departments and agencies employ 2.7 million civilians (and more than 4 million men and women if you include active duty military). State and local governments employ 19 million… [Which] add up to more than 23 million people on government payrolls” (Morone and Kersh 400). Americans may believe bureaucracies are bad but truly “the bureaucracy performs many jobs we need and value- from predicting the weather to defending the United States. We need bureaucracies for our government to function or in other words, “… our government – our democracy – is only as good as the bureaucracy that puts public policy into effect” (Morone and Kersh
Certainly one person cannot control “… 2.7 million civilian bureaucrats, 1.6 million military personal, and an unknown number of private contractors” (Morone and Kersh 420), that is too big of a task for one person to fulfill. The answer to this daunting task is the people, the president, the Congress, and interests groups all control bureaucracies. Overhead democracy deepens our understanding of who controls bureaucracies: “… the people elect presidents who, through their appointees, control the bureaucracy from the top” (Morone and Kersh 421). Additionally, Congress has control over bureaucracies by influencing them through four powers: funding, oversight, authorization, and reorganization. Congress has the power to control the federal budget, this means they also control bureaucracies by funding programs that they approve of and refusing to fund the ones they disapprove of. Next, bureaucracies are also controlled by congress through the “…oversight power to supervise the executive branch, including both White House and federal bureaucratic operations” (Morone and Kersh 422). Thirdly, the power of authorization means, “Congress wields the power to amend programs or even deny their reauthorization” Lastly, Congress has the power to reorganize the “…structure and nature of executive-branch organizations” (Morone and Kersh 422). Finally, interest groups can also have an influence on bureaucracies. They …show more content…
The lists of bureaucracies above are just a few examples of bureaucracies in the United States. In fact bureaucracies consists of millions of Americans: “ U.S. national departments and agencies employ 2.7 million civilians (and more than 4 million men and women if you include active duty military). State and local governments employ 19 million… [Which] add up to more than 23 million people on government payrolls” (Morone and Kersh 400). Americans may believe bureaucracies are bad but truly “the bureaucracy performs many jobs we need and value- from predicting the weather to defending the United States. We need bureaucracies for our government to function or in other words, “… our government – our democracy – is only as good as the bureaucracy that puts public policy into effect” (Morone and Kersh