Bureaucracy In The 1800's

897 Words4 Pages

In the late 1700’s, when America just established its own government, there weren’t as many bureaucracies as there are today. Many factors contributed to the increase in bureaucracies, such as the size of the government, population, and economy. FDR, with his New Deal that created thousands of new jobs (many being part of different agencies and corporations), helped to increase the size of bureaucracies. Just like in the past, there were things that hadn’t existed until today. In the future, there will be things that wasn’t heard of today. That is how the bureaucracy grows, because the factors surrounding the bureaucracies will continue to develop and grow. Administrative discretion is the choice that an agency has when they are executing …show more content…

What was before a somewhat corrupt way of hiring bureaucrats has now been altered and is now based on merit. The whole concept of patronage and the spoils system is that there is no merit required when giving the person the job, meaning they are not qualified. In 1893, the Pendleton Act was created in order to stop patronage. This marked the end of the spoils system and required federal employees to take competitive tests to establish whether or not they are qualified for the job, and not just because they are friends with the President. Plum jobs are similar to patronage, because these jobs are given out without any test requirement, meaning merit doesn’t matter. Cabinet members are such examples of plum jobs, in which the President gives the jobs to his friends and …show more content…

The basic “program design” is flawed and it slows down the implementing process. Congress may also not have been clear enough in what they wanted. An example is Title IX, where women receive the same amount of money for supports as the men do. However, instead of increasing money given to female athletes (due to lack of female sports), funding was cut for male sports. Another reason is that they lack staff or resources that are needed for implementation. An agency could also be “bogged-down” in Red-Tape (Standard Operating Procedures), and it requires a lot of time to change things. Administrators can use their discretion differently when the standard operating procedures don’t properly address implementation. When several departments are involved, confusion arises as the departments overlap. Trying to reorganize the Bureaucracies is unlikely because of the Iron