The Federal Bureaucracy Essay, Research Paper
The federal bureaucracy can have both a positive and negative impact on the efficient working of government. There are five major problems that detract from the efficiency of our government. Red tape conflict, duplication, imperialism, and waste all contribute to a slower more problematic government. However, a well-organized bureaucracy can increase the efficiency of our government. If every agency and department has a specific responsibility that does not overlap with others responsibilities the efficiency will increase greatly.
The complex set of rules and procedures that must be followed to get a task accomplished, commonly referred to as red tape, is one of the largest contributors to an inefficient government. The miles of red tape a committee, agency, or department must go through to get something accomplished slows down the workings of the government by requiring hundreds of forms to be filled out. Although this is a very time consuming process it does help to make sure that the actions to be taken are correct and follow governmental guidelines.
Conflict exists because some agencies seem to be working at cross-purposes with other agencies. This constant fighting between different parts of the bureaucracy detracts from the overall efficiency of the government. Instead of concentrating on completing their job, they set aside their work to fight over who should do what.
When two government agencies seem to be doing the same thing it is called duplication. Duplication slows down the workings of the government because instead of one agency doing the work, it is forced to deal with another agency doing the same work. The agencies are doing the same work twice and this helps to create an inefficient government.
Imperialism refers to the tendency of agencies to grow without regard to the benefits their programs confer or the costs they entail. It results in large part from government agencies seeking goals that are so vague and so difficult to measure that it is hard to tell when they have been attained. The end products are agencies that are larger and more costly but accomplish fewer things.
Waste is probably the most frequently made criticism of the bureaucracy. The government is frequently overcharged because of the way it buys items. The bidding system the government and contractors use is somewhat unrealistic. Everyone one has heard of the stories of our government buying screws for hundreds of dollars, which is a really inefficient system of operating.
The bureaucracy does have its benefits that actually do increase the efficiency of the government. The amazing amount of division of labor ensures that things will get done and that the workload on one individual agency will not be too great. Each agency is specialized to do a certain task and although some may do the same task, the task is guaranteed to get accomplished.
After searching the Internet for far too long and thinking way to hard I could not come up with any other reasons why a larger government would increase the efficiency of our government.
The bureaucracy in the government contributes to a large extent to the inefficiency of the government. Many people in government have positions that are pointless and hundreds of pounds of paperwork have to be completed before any action can be taken. A large bureaucracy can be beneficial if it is well organized but our current bureaucracy is too large, complicated, and inefficient.