Bureaucratic Pathologies

In my personal opinion sometimes efficiency can breed problems of its own. There is a lot of grid lock in Congress that "gunks" up the bureaucratic system, however, if programs were changed to appease those who have dug their heels into the dirt it could create a lot of problems of its own. This can cause programs to be bias and work more for those that it aimed to appease than for the public good in which the program is supposed to help. A person that complies with all changes and requests to a system can also be considered effieicnet, however, it is important to honor the merit system. If programs are in a constant flux to match the fickle requests of the gorvernment than it would never be able to function. By handing the power to enfore the rules and regulations given to the bureaucracy to officials that are knowledgeable enough to make the decisions necessary to promote effectiveness allows for programs to live up to their fullest potentional even if ithey doen't always comply with the government and could create inefficiency. Another important point to remember is that while duplication can create waste and inefficiency it allows for an important checks and balance system. There is a competition within the agency for budgeting on certain programs that they share in common. That competition allows for innovation and productivity that may not be otherwise accomplished if all programs that held similar jobs were cut.

Weber believed that for a bureaucracy to work it needed to be structured in a hierarchial system, there needed to be task specialization, extensive rules, clear goals, the merit principle, and impersonality. he wanted a cold, cut and dry system that worked more like a machine. Everyone in the machine has a well defined task and no matter what happens around that person they remain on their objective so that their goal is accomplished. The system dreamed up by Weber is very black and white. The American system of government is a lot more gray. The nature of government is to be ever changing so that it can match the culture in which it protects and resides over. Some goals may not be clear at the beginning of an endeavor. There are many instances in which the end goal isn't really defined and the means at which achieving it are even blurrier. For example, the EPA was created to protect the enviroment and the people that live in it. It was created due to an outcry from the people. What types of regulations fall within the domain of the government and what can the government do to both protect the enviroment and the profits of the companies that are polluting it. Gray areas that are left up to people to define. There will always be human error and uncertainity. People are not machines and they can, with 1005 certainty, identify the outcome of any actions that they take. People more or less make it up as they go along, a trial-and-error that allows us to find a system that works the best even if it does not stay confined within the peraminters of Weber's Beaucractic System.

One solution that has been posed is changning the system that exists and make the bureaucracy run like a business. I don't agree with this solution because businesses strive to make a profit without necessarily caring sbout the well being of the public. These agencies were created to protect the public good. Privitization can lead to less regulation and higher risk to the people of the United States. If the EPA was privitized some regulations might be taken away to maximize profits and the Connecticut River may turn green once again.

The bureacracy has a lot of non essential employees that makes it hard for the government to reduce spending. Marco Rubio beleived that for every 2 people that retire only one person should be hired back to cut the amount of people on the payroll. This spending doesn't even account for what the agency is supposed to be doing it only counts for the people hired to do it.

A lot of back logging is creating a serious problem in the VA like seen in the videos from the Daily Show. 97% of their records were paper in 2013 and modernization was slow because computer programs meant to help reduce this problem can't work together. This causes for a lot of people not to recieve the benefits they need in a timely fashion. It can also lead to inadequate accountablitity of those in charge of the various programs within the VA.

There is a lot of dupplication and excess in the Bureaucracy that causes excess spending and adds to the deficit and instead of reducing the number of programs they just press forward with what they have and even add more to it causing even more spending.