(Culp, A Tool Is a Tool Is a Tool - 2)
Take Arnold Schwarzenegger’s whirlwind descent on
Sacramento. The new governor arrived on the wings of promises to reform
the state government. He must have read the same operating manual as
Newsom, because his approach from the beginning has been to negotiate
private contracts instead of waiting for legislated agreements. He has
refused to get bogged down in capital politicking, preferring to market
his programs directly to the people, who are then presumably supposed to
pressure their elected representatives to vote as he wishes. And he has
been largely successful, rolling back an unpopular but needed automobile
registration fee, for example, and persuading five Indian nations to sign
individual compacts regulating casino activity.
In early August the day arrived when Schwarzenegger
triumphantly announced, “A promise made, a promise kept.” The “promise”
arrived in the form of a 2,500-page
“California Performance Review,” which presents more than 1,000
suggestions of ways to “make California the first true 21st
century government in America, a government that is as innovative and
dynamic as the state itself.”
The government in Sacramento could indeed use a
leg-up into the 21st century. And the
California Budget Project notes that many of the report’s
recommendations provide just that: The “proposals to increase the
efficiency and/or ‘user friendliness’ of state government … are modest
improvements that make sense and could be implemented without
restructuring state government or making major policy changes.” In other
words, they’re useful tools.
But they don’t reinvent government. Other provisions
do. Most specifically, says the governor’s office, “the California
Performance Review will consolidate common functions and responsibilities
in single departments, ensure departments with analogous subject matter
responsibilities are grouped together for efficient and effective
leadership by cabinet secretaries.” Efficient indeed. And dangerous.
At present, many of the regulatory functions of the
state government are performed by quasi-independent boards, with members
appointed by the governor for fixed terms. The review commission examined
339 of these agencies, and recommended 118 for extinction. In their place
would be a very small number of new divisions — Health and Human Services,
Higher Education, Labor and Economic Development, Infrastructure, Commerce
and Consumer Protection, Public Safety and Homeland Security,
Environmental Protection, Natural Resources — nestled safely within the
governor’s cabinet structure. A
Chronicle article reporting on the proposal says that critics fear
the new offices will sway according to the whim of their boss. “Many
legislators and environmental groups say Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger … is
responding to campaign promises to forge a ‘business-friendly California’
by getting rid of some of the most effective boards, which have routinely
set national precedents with their policies of cracking down on air and
water polluters.” The governor has also joked about the next step: “A
part-time Legislature is something I'm looking forward to.” Or was it a
joke?
Schwarzenegger has been doing what any good CEO would
do. He’s been cutting through a lot of bureaucratic dead wood to get
results. In choosing this approach, he’s not alone. Far from it. In fact,
he’s keeping some pretty high-powered company.
During the past week, the newspapers have carried one
article after another tracing the end run that the Bush administration has
done around Congress as it exercises its executive power to the utmost. On
Saturday, August 14, the New York Times ran a front-page story headlined,
“Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulation.” It reported that,
while Americans are glued to their TV screens and computer monitors,
following the latest events in Iraq, the administration has quietly
introduced a host of new rules that determine how federal agencies
operate. In an era when government bureaucracies loom large in Americans’
daily lives, these agencies watch out for our health, environment, and
work- or product-safety. In other, more peaceful times, members of
Congress might have weighed in on behalf of their constituents as
regulations were relaxed. But preoccupied with the War on Terror, they
were looking the other way when the administration carried out a campaign
promise to simplify the way the government does business.
“Business” is the operative word. The Times article
notes:
The overall regulatory record shows that the
Bush administration has heeded the interests of business and industry.
Like the Reagan administration, which made regulatory reform a priority,
officials under Mr. Bush have introduced new rules to ease or dismantle
existing regulations they see as cumbersome. Some analysts argue that the
Bush administration has introduced rules favoring industry with a
dedication unmatched in modern times.
On Sunday the Washington Post took up the melody,
running the first of three articles, entitled
“Bush Forces a Shift in Regulatory Thrust — OSHA Made More
Business-Friendly.” Part 2, “‘Data
Quality’ Law Is Nemesis of Regulation,” appeared on Monday, followed
by Part 3,
“Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change,” on Tuesday.
The details are different, but the story is the same.
The people at the Post examined an Office of Management and Budget
database covering the past 20 years to find out how recent presidents have
regulated agencies’ regulatory actions.
All presidents have written or eliminated
regulations to further their agendas. What is distinctive about Bush is
that he quickly imposed a culture intended to put his anti-regulatory
stamp on government.
Unlike his two predecessors, Bush has canceled
more of the unfinished regulatory work he inherited than he has completed,
according to The Post’s analysis. He has also begun fewer new rules than
either President Bill Clinton or President George H.W. Bush during the
same period of their presidencies.
Once again, the theme is simplification, with an eye
toward cost-savings.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Chronicle transposed
the tune to a new key with an article by Don Lattin, the paper’s religion
writer:
“Bush's Faith-Based Changes Scrutinized —
He Has Made Changes Without Congress' OK.” The scrutinizer is the
Albany-based Rockefeller Institute of Government, which has just released
a report called
“The Expanding Administrative Presidency — George W. Bush and the
Faith-Based Initiative.” The process under scrutiny is the same:
In the absence of new legislative authority, the
President has aggressively advanced the Faith-Based Initiative [issued in
January 2001] through executive orders, rule changes, managerial
realignment in federal agencies, and other innovative uses of the
prerogatives of his office.
But this time, the energetic application of executive
power achieved a very different result. Instead of simplification, Bush’s
faith-based program created more bureaucracy. Not only did he act
quickly, redeeming a campaign promise just nine days into his presidency
by creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives (WHOFBCI). But soon afterward he also established FBCI branch
offices in a number of federal agencies to implement the initiative by
helping “the federal government coordinate a national effort to expand
opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to
strengthen their capacity to better meet social needs in America’s
communities.” What is unusual, the report suggests, is not the Bush
administration’s unilateral exercise of power but its scope:
The innovation in the Bush Faith-Based
Initiative is the creation of a high-profile special office in the White
House, connected to mini-offices in ten government agencies, each
with a carefully selected director and staff, and empowered to articulate,
advance and oversee coordinated efforts to win more financial
support for faith-based groups as publicly-aided providers of domestic
public services.
What is not unusual is the rationale given for the
action. Last March Bush explained to a group of faith-based leaders in Los
Angeles,
I got a little frustrated in Washington because
I couldn’t get the bill passed out of the Congress. They were arguing
process. I kept saying, “Wait a minute, there are entrepreneurs all over
our country who are making a huge difference in somebody’s life; they’re
helping us meet a social objective. Congress wouldn’t act, so I signed an
executive order — that means I did it on my own.” In other words, it was
just good business.
Bush has been doing what any good CEO would do. He’s
been cutting through a lot of bureaucratic dead wood to get results. In
choosing this approach, he’s not alone. Far from it. In fact, he’s keeping
some pretty high-powered company.
Newsom and Schwarzenegger and Bush — standard-bearers
for a new, better way of governing.
The frightening thing is what’s missing. Amid all the
talk of user friendliness, equal opportunity, and service for the people,
there’s little talk of democracy. “We believe deeply in government,” say
Osborne and Gaebler. “How do we act collectively? Through government.”
Through reinvented government.
It’s a truism that democracies are messy. And they’re
not particularly efficient. More than 200 years of experience have
demonstrated that they are also in frequent need of mending, as one branch
or another becomes vulnerable to the appetites of special interests. But
when we insist that the checks and balances established by the
Constitution do their job, our particular form of democracy works pretty
well.
The problem is that there is nothing innately
cooperative about the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Quite
the contrary. The government operates in a kind of political free market,
where each branch uses every tool at its disposal to compete with the
other two for power.
That’s where the “reinventers of government” come in
— not as heralds of a new technological, knowledge-based era, but as the
creators of a new political tool to assist the executive branch in
its struggle. In the past decade, legislatures and courts have sat silent,
as though stunned, as CEO-type executives surged ahead. In the past, every
time our democracy has become skewed, it has managed to right itself. It
undoubtedly will again.
