A Long Rant about Bureaucracy

In today's Times, David Brooks' paranoia hits new heights. He points to a recent blockbuster article by Priest and Arkin about the growing size of security bureaucracy in the post 9/11 era. He writes that these expansions plus the financial reform laws and health care program has resulted in a ballooning of the federal government. He says that we're entering a progressive era which places too much emphasis on experts.

When historians look back on this period, they will see it as another
progressive era. It is not a liberal era — when government intervenes to
seize wealth and power and distribute it to the have-nots. It’s not a
conservative era, when the governing class concedes that the world is
too complicated to be managed from the center. It’s a progressive era,
based on the faith in government experts and their ability to use social
science analysis to manage complex systems.

First let's deal with the Priest and Arkin article. They very clearly say that most of expenditures related to security began during the Bush administration. Also, they say that a huge chunk of the expenditures have gone to private firms. In fact, the government security bureaucracy has suffered as a result. Experienced security experts are leaving the government for the fat salaries at private firms, and we're left with a bunch of 20 year olds running the CIA. All sorts of people outside of government now have top secret clearance, which makes you wonder why Russia was wasting time supporting spies in suburban Montclair. Their article leads to concerns about corporate welfare, not government growth. 

Secondly, bureaucracy is indeed growing. It's been growing for a long time regardless of who is in the White House. Hell, Reagan wasn't even able to shrink the size of government as he hoped. His hand-picked guy refused to eliminate the Department of Education. Bureaucracies are self-sustaining and are apolitical. Once a bureaucracy has been set in place, the individuals who run these departments have loyalties to their co-workers and need their salaries to pay their mortgage and get their kids GI Joes with the Kung-Fu grip for Christmas. It's very, very hard to get these guys to fire their co-workers and themselves.

This thickening of the bureaucracy has made it a lot harder for any president, regardless of political party, to take decisive action. Stephen Skowronek has written a lot about this.

I find it amazing that a conservative would complain about the growth of the government that was needed to regulate Wall Street. If you're ticked off that we had to bail out Wall Street, the only way to prevent that from happening in the future is to watch the bastards. That means hiring more guys from the SEC to demand paperwork and presentations from people on Wall Street.

The growing needs of our country, as well bureaucratic entrenchment, has led to the growth of government in Washington. Ideology, Democrats, Obama and snotty elites in DC aren't the cause. Of course, this bureaucracy needs oversight. We also need to be very careful before we create new departments. We shouldn't expand thoughtlessly. Also, the Priest and Arkin article clearly shows the dangers of expanding the private sphere at the expense of government.

(Sorry this is very rushed. I have a packed day ahead of me, so I had to spit everything out quickly. I won't be able to think straight until I get these ideas out.)

UPDATE: See The Edge of the American West.