Growing Government Also
Piles Up the Red Tape

Red Tape Grows!

Commentary for Tuesday 04/24/2007 More on Bureaucracies

Red Tape Growth: It's a fact. Red Tape is the outcome of Governmental Spawned Entities. First, in order to see how this happens, a look at the decision making process at the Federal level. Congress can just bring up a proposal, debate it and vote on it. This actually happens whenever a proposal has broad bipartisan support. (Meaning there will be no political fallout stemming from the issue.) Not all proposals are so easy though and quite frequently the issue is beyond the expertise of the legislative membership. The vehicle to handle such issues is a committee. A committee has the responsibility of exploring the issue from all sides; technical, cultural, and political. The committee will rely on a variety of sources during their deliberations. These sources can be Vendors, Lobbyist, Experts, proponents, and opposers of the issue. It is after the committee deliberates on the issue that they can either send it to the floor for a vote, or decide that the proposal wasn't a good idea and just kill it. So far, so good.

Commissions: Congress and the President can also set up "Commissions" through a legislative act, signed by the President. In a lot of instances, commissions are set up to relieve the politicians from having to make a decision. In other words, a dodge from their responsibilities. There are numerous 'commissions' set up for all sorts of purposes. I've listed a few chosen at random and these are just a small sampling of the total: Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Commission on Civil Rights, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Federal Election Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. You get the idea. The bureaucrats who are ensconced within these commissions are career people. (Except the Commissions Head) Some Commissions also have regulatory powers which means that the commissions regulations are enforced by Federal Law enforcement. Within each commission are several departments, each with it own set of rules. Department heads are keen on getting credit for their department, so they may not share information with other departments within the same Commission. Or, the Commission may have rules preventing the sharing of information. Commissions are influenced by competing interest, their own employees, and by the party in power who nominated the Commissioner.

A Conclusion: As layers of bureaucracies are added to our governmental structures, more red tape is generated. These structures develope a life of their own and are hard to get rid of or even tame. Government and governmental structures become so bogged down with protocol that it takes experts just to navigate the giant webs of bureaucratic structure.--So we drown in a sea of red tape!

The Party in Power: The nominating process by a President, with Congressional Consent, to the top positions give him a leg up on policy direction. But it is the career employees, the lesser executives of a Commission who have the ability to thwart policy that they do not agree with. This does not just apply to Commissions, but also to the different Cabinet Departments, such as the Department of State, Department of Defense and etc. The Federal Government is a Bureaucratic Monster that desperately needs streamlining. It is because of the size and structure of Governmental entities that we get so much red tape congestion. There may be Commissions that could be dismantled, but by the nature of such an entity, it wants to survive. The bureaucrats that make up the commission work hard to make sure that they remain viable. Some of the creativity by some of these Commissions to stay viable is subject for another column, but suffice it to say that Government waste is not confined to wasteful congressional projects.

At Daylite Sun: We want you to research your government and how it operates so that you can be informed and not be a victim of propaganda. An informed person is a good thing. Start here to learn more about Commissions and Departments.

Federal Agencies

In Closing: Just seeing how big our Government is, takes your breath away. It is a wonder that anything ever gets done!

Robert welcomes your comment to this or any other of my commentaries.

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