Administrative Capability--Enabling Weird Ideas

The Times today has an article on the history of the $100 rebate--$100 Rebate: Rise and Fall of G.O.P. Idea. It includes an interesting quote:

"Mr. Prater [staffer] reminded Mr. Ueland [Frist aide] that the Bush administration in 2001 sent rebate checks to taxpayers . Mr. Ueland ran the idea past his boss.

'It seemed reasonable to him,' Mr. Ueland said, describing Mr. Frist's reaction."

What is my point?

That sometimes, not all the time, governmental decisions depend on considerations of implementation--is the idea doable? If a faceless bureaucrat says it is, either by pointing to past history or by coming up with a new mechanism, as was done in 2001, then Congress or the bigshot administrators can go ahead and make up their minds.

Condescensional Wisdom, on Both Sides

George Will has a column, Condescensional Wisdom,
on John Kenneth Galbraith and liberalism in the 50's. He charges liberals like Galbraith, Reismann, et.al. with being condescending eggheads, who thought Americans were the helpless prey of advertising. There's a bit of truth in the charge. America is basically democratic and capitalistic, meaning we're all responsible for what the country is. Certainly anyone who writes on what America ought to be, as opposed to what it is, runs the risk of falling into snobbery and self-righteousness. George Will ought to know, from personal experience.

The "Decider", For Real?

Apparently President Bush is getting some attention (i.e., parodies, songs, etc.) for his claim that he's the "decider". But few seem to challenge the idea that he is decisive. I don't know. What I do know is that Mr. Bremer, in his book on Iraq, says that Bush doesn't announce decisions during or at the end of meetings of top officials. (Can't give a cite; I've returned the book to the library already.) It's not clear to me whether Bush does have a decision-making process.
If I remember the Woodward book on Iraq the decision to go to war evolved, it wasn't "decided" in the sense I'm familiar with. (As a bureaucrat you prepare a decision memo on an issue, giving options and pros and cons on each and the decider signs off, or holds a meeting to come up with an alternative. That's the way the Nixon White House worked, which may not be an endorsement.)

Then today I read in the Senate committee's report on Katrina this:

"In addition, the need to resolve command issues between National Guard and active duty forces – an issue taken up (but not resolved) in a face-to-face meeting between President Bush and the Governor on Air Force One on the Friday after landfall, may have played a role in the timing of active duty troop deployments."

There can be problems when political leaders get together to resolve problems--they may not know what they're doing. But staff (read Andrew Card) need to follow up on missing decisions.

It's possible that Bush fakes being a "decider", relying on his staff to read his mind and fill the gaps. (That seems to me to have been part of Reagan's process, but Baker and Regan were more assertive aides than Card seems to have been.)

A Bureaucrat's Ambivalence--Agricultural Disasters

USDA announced that "sign-up begins May 17, 2006, for four crop and livestock assistance programs providing aid to producers affected by the destructive 2005 hurricanes. These programs are funded by $250 million in Section 32 funds authorized immediately following these destructive storms."

This is separate from the billions for disaster included in the supplemental appropriation bill now under consideration in Congress (HR4939). A bunch of people have criticized the provisions, including the Secretary of Agriculture.

It's a topic that causes me much ambivalence. I was a part, a big part I think, of USDA's implementation of early ad hoc disaster programs during the 1980's. I suspect there's still bits and pieces of the software programs and system designs incorporated in USDA's implementation of the current programs (bureaucrats and programmers like to re-use the old). And the bureaucratic systems are like the field of dreams--"build it and they will come". If bureaucrats can build systems to get money in farmers pockets reasonably efficiently, politicians will come up with programs to authorize such payments.

When I remember my father and uncle, and the pain caused by bad weather, disaster programs seem halfway justified. When my memory fades, the programs seem excessive.

RIP JK Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith died. See the NYTimes obit, which I found disappointing, though it did provide words of wisdom about the worldview of farmers and Calvinist Presbyterians:

"Mr. Galbraith said in his memoir "A Life in Our Times" (1981) that no one could understand farming without knowing two things about it: a farmer's sense of inferiority and his appreciation of manual labor. His own sense of inferiority, he said, was coupled with his belief that the Galbraith clan was more intelligent, knowledgeable and affluent than its neighbors.

"My legacy was the inherent insecurity of the farm-reared boy in combination with the aggressive feeling that I owed to all I encountered to make them better informed," he said."

I can identify with the thoughts. (My family often played the game: Who's Right, I Am.)

Last year I posted a note of praise of him as a great bureaucrat. It's common in bureaucracy, and I suppose in real life, to find great talkers but someone who will write the first draft is a great asset. At times I didn't agree with his political ideas but the basic Calvinism of disdaining the nouveau riche and conspicuous consumption and valuing the use of money for public goods rings true.

Great Bureaucrats (Henriette Avram)

The Post today carries the obit of a bureaucrat no one has heard of (perhaps Laura Bush did):

"Henriette D. Avram; Transformed Libraries :

Henriette D. Avram, whose far-reaching work at the Library of Congress replaced ink-on-paper card catalogues and revolutionized cataloguing systems at libraries worldwide, died April 22 of cancer at Baptist Hospital in Miami."

From the obit we learn that Ms Avram essentially created a metaclassification scheme, subsuming the Dewey decimal and others, that rapidly became a world standard. Perhaps even more impressive is the personal story behind the facts--no college, goes to work at NSA, becomes an early computer programmer, then to Library of Congress and ends up in charge of 1700 people! Oh, and raised 3 kids.

She did great at one of the essential jobs of a bureaucrat--creating abstract representations of reality.

So Long, Secretaries Day

Yesterday was what I used to observe as "Secretaries Day". See this official explanation of the day and week , see this in Slate for a view from the other side.

My impression is that secretaries are an endangered species. 21 years ago in a computer training session for professional I was told: "I don't type". I doubt many would say that today (although Michael Chertoff doesn't use e-mail). I recently read a book on Eisenhower as President. (I think it was called "the Hidden Hand" but I'm too lazy to look it up. It was one of the first books to renovate Ike's reputation on the basis of his work behind the scenes.) It was written in the early 80's and the author included in the acknowledgments a nod to his secretary for typing the manuscript. That used to be commonplace but no more.

Why Doctors Aren't "Faceless Bureaucrats"

There's a reason that doctors aren't considered "faceless bureaucrats"--the pricey training they get in medical school. You know the saying: "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made"? Well it turns out according to the Times today that doctors are trained to fake caring--How a Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down: [The writer describes an appointment where the patient is getting tense, which she defuses by complimenting the patient's hair.]

"We were taught to call them lubricating comments: little morsels of oleaginous verbiage tucked into the usual miserable catechism to ease it along a little. Quite early on in medical school, we were handed a list to memorize. Most of us shuddered. It seemed then, in that nice, peaceful classroom, that the list's contents were just inane. 'Tell me more about that.' 'That must have been very difficult for you.' 'I hear what you are saying.' 'Your story moves me.' Surely, with all the other wisdom spilling from our lips, we would not be resorting to those viscous cliches.
But with experience came the knowledge"

[that such things are necessary.]

Seriously, bureaucrats can be divided into those who directly contact the citizens/clientele of the bureaucracy and those who don't. The former are often not trained in how to cope with tense situations. (Although I remember that my USDA bureaucracy did offer such training when I came on board--not sure they do now.) But it's mostly the latter who get called faceless bureaucrats, on the assumption that they deliberately create rules that make no sense but make life difficult for the client, and often for the bureaucrat who's dealing with the client.

The Course of "Progress" on Rural Roads

The law of unexpected consequences operates in Montgomery County, MD, where the county is trying to preserve rural farming districts. It's well-intended, but as this article in today's Washington Post indicates, it's difficult, because the remaining farmers are adopting new modern equipment.

Where the 'Rustic' Clogs the Road:

"With traditional farming less profitable, many farmers are using larger tractors and combines, some as wide as 15 feet, to plant on more land. Their machines, they say, are getting too large for the roads, which are kept as close to their original condition as possible. Compounding the problem is that farmers are increasingly sharing the roads with commuters looking to find alternatives to clogged highways."

When All Movies Are Smashes

Garrison Keillor will always be famous for his "all children are above average" line. But as I was looking at our Netflix account the other day I was struck by the ratings--we liked everything we saw (at least 3 stars, some 4 and a few 5)!

Why's that? In part because we're generous graders but mostly because of the way we choose movies to watch--we don't waste our money if there's a good chance we won't like them. What that means is that instead of having a 5 star range in our rating system, we've only got 3. I think it also means that the Netflix ratings carry less information--our "3" doesn't really tell you that much, our chosing the movie in the first place is the most informative data Netflix has on our preferences.