Bureaucrats Vindicated?

The Washington Post Federal Page reports on some research here: "It turns out that the career managers, on average, do a better job of running federal agencies than the political appointees do. So says a 41-page study by political scientist David E. Lewis of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs."

It compares OMB's ratings of programs run by career bureaucrats versus those run by political appointees and finds the former do better. (Trigger the fireworks, let's celebrate.)

However, as an ever-cautious bureaucrat, some skepticism is in order--Dr. Lewis may be comparing apples and oranges. For example, in USDA circa 1970, the Soil Conservation Service was run by careerists, Farmers Home administration was run by politicos. But the programs were different--SCS was more "scientific" and less controversial than the loan-making functions of FmHA. I'd guess that there's a high correlation between "careerist" managers and "scientific" (i.e., not politically controversial) programs. That raises the issue of whether it's easier in some sense to run a program where the outcomes are more knowable and can be judged by clearer criteria. The question answers itself.

Political appointees run agencies that the public as a whole does not trust. The decline of trust in government over the past 40 years has been paralleled by an increase in the number of politically led agencies.

So while the work of Dr. Lewis is welcome, I'm going to save my fireworks.

Comment on Comments

Occasional visitors post comments. At least one recent one suggested swapping URL's (which may have been a scam). All comments are welcome, but please remember the comment facility hides your true e-mail address, so the only way I have to respond is in another comment. Likely I should work more on blogging's intricacies, but I haven't yet.

Where's the Fire Wardens?

When we had fire drills, both in school and working for the federal government, we had fire wardens whose job was to go to all the rooms and see that everyone was out. Such officials were notably lacking in New Orleans.

My impression is that both the USSR and China had the equivalent--in USSR each apartment building had one or more designated watchers, at least according to Le Carre, who could have served a fire warden function. In China, society was divided into "tens" and "hundreds", again providing the government with control down to the last individual.

I doubt the U.S. would ever have such a network, even though it would save work and lives. The Brits did have fire wardens during the London air raids in WWII. But absent such a repetitive threat, we just don't trust the government enough to let it create such a network. Socially, we opt for freedom and death rather than life.

Seizing Straws

This from MSNBC's Bagdad diary--the major is mainly concerned with the importance of superstition, but includes this bit of news:

"Route Irish, according to this threat-briefing, which represents our best guess at the situation before we locked and loaded and headed down the trail, has not been seriously hit in weeks. That was news. Some rifle and light machine-gun fire, sure, but nothing heavy. No Rocket-Propelled Grenades, no VBIEDs, not even any IEDs…nothing, for weeks. Things have changed on that road. An Iraqi brigade is sitting there on both sides of the highway, and they have taken some hits, to be sure. But the Iraqis made the road safer than I have known it to be before."

Of course, my picking up on this is akin to the major's superstition--we both latch onto one bit of information and ride the hell out of it (his superstition was that no vehicle in which a particular piece of music was playing has ever (in his experience) been hit). That's a human habit that may have saved us from lions in the bushes but doesn't always serve us well, particularly now when there are so many pieces of information available.

Best of Bureaucrats

This apparently from a volunteer helping in Katrina:

"Apparently being a bureaucrat, like riding a bicycle, is something you don't forget. The initial uneasiness that I feel in any new situation vanished the moment I started filing. I became involved in the game. Could I file faster than the person next to me? Could I keep ahead of the in-box? Could I find the case that was misfiled under the girlfriend's last name? I'm always trying for my personal best. I can throw myself into the mundane with enthusiam that's not faked. In the larger scheme of things, maybe filing papers isn't that important. But to the people sitting in line hour after hour, anything that can shorten the time spent waiting helps."

Bureaucracy makes things into routines, which is bad and good. There's some good advice about working within a bureaucracy as well.

SSN on Medicare Cards

The LATimes had an article a couple days ago pointing out that while states and counties were removing Social security numbers from drivers licenses and similar documents, Medicare (and DOD) still uses it as the identifier on their cards:

"Spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said that Medicare officials were aware of the concerns involving use of the numbers and that alternatives had been discussed. But so far, he said, there were no plans to issue cards with different numbers, which would probably cost $100 million and require retooling the agency's computer systems.
"
IMHO, the number on the card serves these purposes in the medicare computer system:

• show to the clerk that the person already has a record in the system, as opposed to enrolling the person for the first time.
  
• provide a quick, fast way to access the record--typing in 9 digits is probably a bit faster than typing in "Harshaw", "William", and then deciding that the one living in Reston, not nearby Oakton, is the correct one. Of course, "bharshaw [at] hotmial.com" is quick and sure.
  

What's unfortunate is that neither the Medicare bureaucrat nor the LATimes writer is aware of the work being done on IDs in government. It's another example of the "silo" complex.

No, No, No to Carter-Baker Panel

Dan Balz has an article in the Post on the Jimmy Carter/James Baker panel recommending fixes to our electoral system. I've no problem with most of the items, but I continue to believe we should phase out the Social Security number.

"The panel recommended that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission oversee a system to allow easy sharing of state voter databases as well as requiring the use of a uniform identifier -- the voter's Social Security number -- to help eliminate duplicate registrations."

See the recent LATimes article on ID theft for the problems we run into when we use SSN. See this previous blog on the subject.

Managing Federal Credit Cards

The NYTimes has an article on the Federal credit cards, with a purchase limit that was raised in the context of Katrina.

"The thought of individual employees able to charge up to a quarter-million dollars per trip with only the plastic in their wallets, directly payable by Uncle Sam, has government watchdogs agog."

The cards were pushed in the Clinton administration, as part of Gore's "Reinventing Government" program. They're a good idea that was poorly implemented, IMHO. The cards were used both for travel and small purchases, but the management controls were lacking, as GAO discovered. I've a couple suggestions in the new context:

• the credit card companies have software that identifies breaks from a normal pattern of usage, hoping to find cases where a card has been stolen. The Feds should apply the same software among cards--the pattern of usage among employees with similar responsibilities should be similar (i.e., if they're only used for travel, or for small purchases).
• public servants have no privacy, so make the record of purchases for each employee available on the internet and authorize rewards for people discovering abuses.
• have the employee's supervisor log on to the account and approve it each month. (Sort of like the controls that parents can put on their children's cards.)

Green Foolishness?

Today's WPost has an article on how an environmentalist redid her kitchen in green, or should that be "greenly"? She says she turned down granite for her countertops in favor of recycled glass embedded in concrete because "granite is definitely not renewable -- once it's removed from the earth, it's gone forever."

I'm tempted to mock her--she fails to realize that concrete is made with cement, derived from limestone quarried from the earth, heated in a kiln fired most probably by fossil fuel, combined with sand which is also derived from the earth. (It's not clear to me which counter top would require more energy to make.) But seriously, it's an example of the limited vision we all have. We all argue based on a subset of data because you've got to close your mind somewhere. It's also an example of trends. To this old codger, the idea of a green kitchen seems a bit laughable, but it's taken seriously in the paper and may well be a coming thing. It's how social norms develop, just remember (as I do every time I watch an old movie) how norms on smoking have changed over the years.

Buy One or Build One, On the Tick of Time

After some 7 or 8 years, I think it's time to get a new PC. The issue is how? Unlike previous acquisitions, I'm now retired so I could save a little money and gain some confidence by buying the components and building it myself. Building would give me a warm fuzzy feeling, whereas spending the money would trigger some guilt.

As far as capability goes, I've installed new cards and hard drives in past PC's, so I have some experience working inside the case. Harshaw's law, you never do things right the first time, might apply, but probably not. There would be a learning curve. It probably would take longer to build than buy. At my age, when one can count the years remaining, that's not a trivial consideration. Is building a PC what I want to do with my time? Tick, tock, not.