Revamping Bureaucracies

An earlier post and comments on the Farm Service Agency leads to broader consideration of how you revamp an old bureaucracy.

Via Kevin Drum (Washington Monthly) is a link to a proposed alternative to Rumsfeld's Quadrennial Defense Review. Rummy wants more special forces, but doesn't cut major weapons systems, even though there's no military threat to us in the world.

Meanwhile the State Department is revamping its overseas posts--from today's Post: U.S. to Shift Envoys to China, India: "China and India have emerged as the big winners -- and Russia and Germany as the top losers -- in the first round of a broad restructuring of U.S. diplomatic posts ordered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

Oracle is firing 2,000 workers after its takeover of Siebel. (Seems like just yesterday they took over Peoplesoft--what happened to the monopoly concerns?)

The difference is that Oracle's workers have nowhere to go, while the DOD programs (and the FSA offices) are supported by Congress. And of course, there's no Representative from Russia to tell Secretary Rice to what to do. A Senator Helms can play hob with the way an administration wants to run foreign policy, but there's lots more freedom in managing posts in foreign countries.