Bureaucracy - How Big Can it Get?

Referred to half the time as the fourth branch, the U.S. bureaucracy is despised by the vast majority of Americans. In all truth, our bureaucracy is essential to our modern society. There are claims that it isn't constitutional due to the fact that members of the bureaucracy are not elected, but the president is given constitutional power to put those people there. But there are other complaints about bureaucracy that have more of a motivation.

March 23, 2005 explosion at BP oil refinery in Texas City that resulted in 17 deaths and over 170 injuries.

There have assertions that bureaucracy stagnates growth and innovation, but this is necessary to insure that the same innovation and growth doesn't spiral out of control and into a catastrophe as it often does. Take BP for example; in the late 1990s, they moved from a government-managed rule-bound entity into a slim, more productive company. They disregarded the checks and balances placed on them in favor of a profit-motivated management style. This culminated in the 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery which killed over a dozen people and injured more than a hundred more, as well as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Well explosion that became known as the Gulf Oil Spill. BP was so eager to move away from the checks and balances that slowed growth in their operations that they didn't stop to consider which of those checks and balances should have stayed implemented. This is a perfect example of what happens when bureaucratic oversight is rejected entirely.

These issues with our current bureaucracy do not bother me. What does bother me is the question of

What do you make of all that red tape? He seems to really have his hands tied.

efficiency: how big should our bureaucracy be allowed to get before it becomes inefficient? It is my understanding that the larger a government or section of the government grows, it becomes harder to maintain efficiency and keep track of new developments. A good example of this is education in our public school systems. It is my understanding that U.S. public schools are becoming more inefficient in how it gets resources to where they need to go and how it encourages student initiative and growth, specifically in the inner cities. I can attest to that as someone who has progressed through quite a few schools in the past ten years and has noticed the deterioration. Bureaucratic systems, policies and practices that have built up over the past few decades have led to fewer resources being allocated to the classroom and it has prevented teachers from getting the support they need to address individual student needs. Teachers, students, parents, and taxpayers alike are all feeling frustrated and disheartened.

A chart detailing (left) the rate of public school employment of faculty compared to student enrollment and (right) the rate of federal spending in public education against reading, science, and math scores.

There are many examples of bureaucracy getting in the way of student advancement and learning: 1) Waste, fraud and abuse of district resources resulting in taxpayer dollars meant for education ending outside of education itself; 2) The bar for learning and advancement has been lowered in certain states which puts those students at a disadvantage when applying for a job; 3) School boards focus on micromanaging, adult in-fighting, and complying with existing policies and procedures rather than on solving these systematic problems to create environments that support teachers and students and lead to academic achievement. The list goes on and on, and even though no one i particular is to blame it is clear that education bureaucracy needs to be overhauled.

'Nuff said.

Bureaucracy has both benefits and disadvantages which I have become very aware of over the past few years and have accepted. Unfortunately, we are at a cross-roads in our current political system with two sides who are moving further and further away to opposite extremes where very few people are willing to acknowledge both sides of the coin. You have the Democrat party focusing mostly on the positive aspects of bureaucracy and the Republican party focusing mostly on the negatives; nothing ever gets done because neither side will acknowledge both aspects of the situation we are currently in. Bureaucracy is necessary to the large, complicated, and rapidly-changing society we live in, but it also needs improvement in order for it to work more efficiently.