I'm going to bore you all again
By Achance Posted in Republicans — Comments (38) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from Diaries ... - MartinAKnight
I can already see the collective eyes rolling back in most heads here because this is another of my boring, somewhat technical posts on how to run a government and why Republicans can't or won't do it right. Some of this is repetive of previous posts, but I'm going to keep hammering on it. Scooter Libby's tragic conviction is merely the worst and latest example of the consequences of not knowing how to run an Executive Branch agency. Republicans since '94 had proven themselves superbly able to articulate policies that resonated with the res publica and get themselves elected. We argue amongst ourselves over whether the socoms of fiscoms or whatever should be preponderant, but that varies by the year and region, and we can usually sort that out. What we haven't sorted out is what to do when we're in power. Once we got ourselves fully in power, our inability to actually run the government and stop the leaks and sabotage cost us most of what we'd gained since the Reagan Revolution and the Gingrich-led takeover in '94.
Most of you are much more attracted to political philosophy and policy and find bureaucrats and the machinery of government boring if not downright distasteful. I somewhat share and applaud the anti-government streak in Conservatives and most Republicans, but it has a price, and that price is that once in power, Republicans don't know where the light switches and restrooms are in any government office and are usually too paranoid and insecure to ask anyone. Consequently, a Republican government at any level is constantly leaked, thwarted, sabotaged, and now even prosecuted for things that no one would even notice if a Democrat did them.
Read on ...
I am one of the few here who has been a longtime high-level bureaucrat in both Republican and Democrat administrations and a Republican appointee in a very visible and controversial position; if you'd like to stare into the maw of the Democrat beast, cross swords with AFL-CIO unions in the public sector. I did it for over twenty years, still have my kneecaps, and left on my own terms. Along the way, I kept Alaska's very powerful unions off the streets, largely out of politics, and quietly under contract for a whole gubernatorial term, something that had never been done since collective bargaining began here in 1972. I did it in an administration that was failing almost from the second Frank Murkowski appointed his daughter to the Senate, and I didn't do it by being a nice guy or throwing around money - general increases averaged about 1%/yr during our administration, less than the average even in the non-union states. I did it by knowing how a government works.
First, all governments are structured by Democrats to be run by Democrats and the appointed levels of the bureaucracy are almost totally Democrat. I was a Democrat when first hired and there was no way I would have been hired into a labor relations position had I not been; merit system be damned.
I submit that no Republican can truly effectively run any government as most are currently structured. Governmental structures are driven largely by their budgets, which are in turn driven by the federal budget. Consequently, they replicate the structure and processess of the federal government which was built starting in the New Deal in a time of complete Democrat hegemony. Fundamentally, they are structured to employ the maximum number of Democrats and give them the maximum number of patronage appointments. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY a Republican officeholder could fill all the political appointments with loyal, competent Republicans. Consequently, Republicans try to put loyal people in touchstone positions, sometimes they're even competent, and then leave the Democrats in place everywhere else. If you don't beleive this is a prescription for disaster, ask Scooter Libby and see the leaks in the NYT and WaPo - or any Republican governed state's capital city newspaper.
The very first thing a Republican officeholder should do after his hand comes off the Bible is fire everyone in the government that he has an arguable legal right to fire - every last one, no exceptions. Some of them may be apolical subject matter experts and you can hire them back - after they kiss the ring. The rest lose their houses and girlfriends. There'll be wailing and knashing of teeth and starving babies on the TV, plenty of commentary about how mean you were to those selfless public servants, but it won't last long. It certainly won't last as long as it would if you waited for them to do something to you and then had to face the "polical retaliation" cries and lawsuits. See the current upset over the federal attornies if you don't believe me.
Now every player and lobbyist is going to tell you that you can't disrupt the government like that; it's simply a lie. The only thing you'll disrupt is the contact lists in the lobbyists' Blackberries. The very hardest thing you could do in government is stop it from working. You could fire every political appointee in any government and go on vacation for three months and the only people who'd miss you or them are the lobbyists and reporters.
The day to day operation of government goes on in spite of political management, not because of it. Identify the areas where you must have a change of policy or operations and find loyal, competent people for those areas; leave the rest vacant. You can place the highest level merit system employee in what is usually called acting status and give them the money the appointee would have been making. Most are not political players, but some will be tempted and you have to make an example of any that do. Get yourself a chief of staff who is a card carrying SOB, better yet, get a woman; they can be meaner than men and get away with it, and some good HR/LR people and take out the trash in your workforce. I always kept a couple of really attractive and really ruthless women on staff to do the really dirty work, then I could be the peacemaker and smooth the ruffled feathers when they were done. You will get to fire a few people who don't understand that there's a new sheriff in town, but if you do it with a lot of smoke and noise, you won't have to do much of it before your workforce is quietly working for you. There'll be some whack-a-mole from time to time, but your COS and HR/LR people can handle that, and you can do what you got elected to do.
Then you set up a working group of competent loyalists and reorganize the government itself. If you have a friendly legislative body, you can and should do it with statutory changes, but much can be done with an executive's organizational authority. In governments with an elected chief lawyer or attorney general, understand that AG stands for almost governor, and he or she is not your friend; get yourself a good "kitchen cabinet" lawyer that knows something about government and, especially, employment law. Many states, especially the older ones, also have elected department heads that you may have to work around. Your goal is to get absolute control over the money, people, and stuff. If you control an elected or appointed officer's money, people, and stuff, you control his heart and mind.
Typically, a government will have between one and two dozen major departments, though some have many more. The precise structure into which you reorganize will depend on the specific situation and especially on revenue and constitutional or statutory structure, but most can be reorganized into six to eight functional groups. The organization should be structured around commonality of function and commonality of employee skills required to accomplish the group mission. All infrastructure, e.g., personnel, budget, finance, procurement, IT, should be moved to the highest common level and placed under people who are absolutely loyal to you; this is how you control the people who aren't absolutely loyal to you.
Everyone who works for you must understand that they must be Caesar's wife and that you don't have any friends; you especially don't have any friends that are lobbyists. Color it how you want, but a lobbyist's job is to find somebody to buy; if he can't buy you, he'll find someone he can buy. Make it a firing offense for anyone outside your most trusted immediate circle to even talk to them - that includes idle chit-chat in tony watering holes; there's a price for those tabs being picked up. They must understand that the only way they're going to get their appropriation or their contract is by the rules and through you. If you don't do that, they'll find someone in the government to give them what they want and you'll pay the political price for it. If you have a unionized workforce, the same is true for union representatives, who are every bit as good at getting in through the back doors as lobbyists, in fact better than most because they know the work and workforce better.
Make it clear that the slighest hint of scandal is summary firing offense. It's tough, but don't defend your people and don't dither; if they misbehave, they're fired - full stop. If the misbehavior involves graft or corruption, they're fired and prosecuted.
Now I admit that this takes a lot of the fun out of governing. After all, if you can't give a contract to a friend, who can you give one to? You'll get some "What the Hell did I help elect you for?" calls, but if you know the business it is easy enough to legally reward your friends and punish your enemies. Democrats have controlled government for so long that they've legalized most of their graft and corruption. They've essentially set up a whole shadow government of Democrat controlled non-profits that they can legally funnel money to. Republicans don't have anything like it, so they resort to breaking procurement laws and ham-fisted corruption and wind up on the front page. If Randy Cunningham had been smart he'd have set up some nice innoucuous sounding non-profits to "study defense related issues" and funneled appropriations to them. Then all he'd have needed was a good accountant and some nice numbered accounts somewhere. Nobody would have been the wiser and he'd be a wise and respected member of Congress who just happened to be a multi-millionaire.
I can go on for awhile, and this is only the broad strokes and bright colors. I know it isn't nearly as interesting as weighty policy debate, election speculation, or trashing Ann Coulter, but unless Republicans can as a matter of policy and specific agenda get a grip on how we will actually run a government to competently implement our policies, we will continue to get hammered on the corruption and competence issues and '08 will be worse than '06.
but I was riveted, and I 2nd Joliphant's motion to front page this. It should be required reading for every elected Republican. We should forward a copy to the White House, though I fear it's a bit to late for them to do anything. Mitt, Rudy, John - you all should be reading this and if you happen to find yourself standing on a podium on Jan 20th, 2009 the very next thing you do should is follow the steps outlined above.
Two thirds of the world is covered by water, the other third is covered by Champ Bailey
Now that's what I call service!
Two thirds of the world is covered by water, the other third is covered by Champ Bailey
Three of them could have written Achance's diary.
Two of them would ignore their own advice.
One will actually go out of his way to hire Democrats.
None of them would admit to any of it.
--
See the Academy
The level of confrontation required to actually get a grip on a government is just beyond the character and capability of most of those whose egos allow or inspire them to run for office; they want/need to be liked by everyone and can't stand it when people don't like them. If you're a Republican officeholder, there's a lot of people whose job it is to dislike you, and there is nothing in the World you could do that would make them like you, e.g., heads of social services non-profits, leftist interest groups, public employee unions, educators, the academy. Yet, Republicans constantly act against their own interest in trying to placate these people.
In Vino Veritas
Great article, I wholeheartedly agree with these recommendations.
Republicans need to fire every single Democrat legally possible when they take office, no exceptions.
The media will whine about it for about two days, but an administration will have 90% fewer headaches and will be much more sucessful in the long run.
"Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. "
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh had a similar verbal editorial on institutionalized Democratic control of the bureaucracy in every state----the larger the bureaucracy, the more Dem control.
I worked for more than a decade in the State Dept, and the old-timers there were almost to a person people who simply couldn't function outside a protected environment, and were almost all Democrats who knew every jot and tittle of grievance procedures and loopholes in the rules and regs of the Dept.
You had to lunch with a lot of these people to really get things done, and this could be a bothersome experience as the lifers would often regale me with long, involved stories I didn't want to hear about how they got an extra perk, or dodged a tiresome requirement, or blind-sided a political appointee. These creatures live in the woodwork of every govt. institution, and are invariably protective of their perks and eager to grow their tiny "empires" to include another personnel slot or niche of responsibility requiring govt subsidized travel.
When Vice Consul in Lyon France, a two-man post, I was deluged with Inspectors General and reps from dozens of govt departments and agencies who wanted to taste the renowned cuisine while pursuing questionable responsibilities. State even saw the position of Consul General captured by another Department, Commerce, via bureaucratic trickery and a weak Sec State after my departure. The Commerce Dept almost set up a foreign outpost in Eastern France in Lyon---lots of hungry desk jockeys made their way to Lyon from Commerce---and did I tell you about the 30,000 US citizens receiving Social Security in the consular district.
Achance should have his piece on the WSJ op-ed page as it is chock-a-block with truths that dare not speak their names about the Democratic Party's complete mastery of American institutionalized government. Federal, State, and often local.
Republicans earn the money, meet the payrolls, and pay the taxes. The Democrats grow the government.
in the State Dept, where Armitage and Powell both undermine GWB's wishes as well as the mandates from a Republican Senate and House of Representatives....
The NEA Bureau of the State Dept is a notorious hotbed of Byzantine conspiratorial jiggery-pokery, with US national interests often taking a back seat to various in-house agendas.
h/t: Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker
Republicans since '94 had proven themselves superbly able to articulate policies that resonated with the res publica and get themselves elected.
WHAT? I see protectionism on the rise, more suspicion than ever of "BIG OIL"(how EVIL!) etc. As I stated earlier, it appears to me we are losing the battle against economica populism. Perhaps this was not always the case, but I believe it to be now.
Other than that, the piece was right on. Sadly, I doubt anybody has the guts to do it.
the reason we're seeing those things in the ascendancy, and I agree that we are, is that once in power, we didn't know what to do to implement our policies that got us elected. We essentially became Democrats with a somewhat different constituency, and the People threw us out for our bad behaviour.
In Vino Veritas
Republicans always fall into the trap of believing that politics is a war of ideas, or principally about ideas. It's clearly not. Not anymore. The Democrats know better than that. It's a war of perception. And Democrats can always count on the owner of that particular battlefield--the battlefield of perception--as their friend and ally, the mainstream press. It's not even a fair fight any more. If not for these little rebel outposts of "new media," it would be of Little Big Horn massacre proportions already.
battle by doing truly stupid things in power. I agree with you on the main point, however. David Horowitz discusses this extensively and well in his "How to Beat the Democrats."
I like a good debate on political ideas as well as the next one - over drinks, not at the office. I never was much on the policy side of things; I saw my job as taking the guy ideas's who's name had been on the ballot and trying to put them in practice. Sometimes I had to say, "Are you sure you want to do that?" Implications of their actions often escape the sort of "big picture guys" who get elected, e.g., "Sure, I can go take all that back from those unions, how long do you think you can take having your whole government shut down?
In Vino Veritas
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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
If not Rudy, then whoever DOES win.
Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.
But I think Rudy would have more success purging the federal civil service system than Newt would. He just seems to have a greater force of will, which would matter the most in this, I think.
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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
...On the specifics of Civil Service Reform (i.e. by statute).
This was one of the late Prof. Herrnstein's (the co-author of The Bell Curve) bete noires, and it seems to have been a topic that has been totally forgotten by the GOP since the Reagan era.
Civil Service reform (with the aim of dismantling the public sector unions) should be right up there with Tort Reform as one of the GOP's #1 agenda items...
like most other government reform initiatives, is really political code for "I don't know how to work the system, so I'm going to throw it out and put in a new, untried one." I'm much more a proponent of organizational reform along the lines I discuss above concentrating on reducing the number of organic organizational units and the number of politically appointed managers. Certainly, no supervisor should be unionized and no manager should have any expectation of continued employment, but beyond that, I'd rather have civil service rules than judges imposing a "covenant of good faith and fair dealing" on all employment actions, which is code for giving a judge the authority to substitute his judgement for management's.
I worked for one of the two or three states that has a constitutionally mandated merit system of employment and wall-to-wall unionization. Alaska's bargaining duty is far greater than the federal bargaining duty; the law is essentially the pre-Taft-Hartley National Labor Act with the added burden of interest arbitration for employees with no right to strike. Administrations that wanted to were able to manage effectively. Understand that Democrats do not want to manage effectively if it means crossing unions, at least up to a point. At some point even Democrats figure out that they can never give the unions enough and say, "Unleash Hell." The only time I was ever able to absolutely take the gloves off and use any arguably legal tactic was in the two Democrat administrations for which I worked when they finally tired of the unions. Republicans are always worried that someone will say they're being mean.
The real problem is supervisors who are often unable and usually unwilling to supervise and I fully understand it, especially in a unionized environment. In a Democrat administration, if a supervisor tries to discipline and employee and the union objects, the Rep just calls the nearest political manager and the supervisor is in his office eating carpet. That doesn't have to happen often before supervisors conclude it isn't a profitable enterprise. Then there's the fact that the management turns over every two or four years. You fire an employee, he goes to the right cocktail party and writes a check or two, and you look around the day after the election and he's your new boss. Been there, done that! Reducing the number of politically appointed managers goes a long way on that count. Most of the stuff about how difficult it is to fire merit system employees, especially if unionized, is simply myth. Alaska's law requires a grievance procedure that ends in binding arbitration; the presumed bete noire of employers, and I can't remember the last time we lost all of a discipline or dismissal arbitration, for most of my tenure as director they didn't even bother to grieve any but the most high profile ones - they knew they would lose and didn't want to spend the money. You just set up a labor relation function that knows what it's doing and when a supervisor wants to discipline or dismiss somebody, they swing into action.
Unlike many here, I am not anti-union. Frankly, I would not want a delivery of service level job in a government that wasn't union; supervision and management are often incompetent and even more often petty and vicious. That said, there is a fundamental problem with public sector collective bargaining.
Collective bargaining, American style, is essentially a Marxist dynamic: labor is allowed to collectivize as the antithesis to collectivized capital in the form of the corporation. Each party represents its interests and, at least theoretically, those interests balance and the company stays in business and the union members get paid. The important point is that neither party has any right to try to influence the interests of the other; it is a per se unfair labor practice for either to attempt to interfere with the other's choice of representative for example. Beyond its economic demands, the UAW has no influence on the Board of Directors of General Motors.
In the public sector, the union can and does buy the Board of Directors, and tries to every two and four years. I've had lots of conversations with union reps end with something along the lines of, "We'll see what you say about that when we have our new governor," and they can make good on it. Even though for most of my career I was a merit system employee, I twice had my head very publicly on the list of the unions' demands of their endorsed candidate. After Knowles was elected in '94, his new commissioner of administration, my new boss, just walked in and told us that he'd promised the unions that he was going to fire us all. It was a promise he didn't get to keep, but I put my affairs in order, quit, and went to work for the Republican controlled Legislature - with his misery as my mission.
So, before this gets any longer; public employees can have collective bargaining rights if they don't have unlimited political rights, e.g., and original Hatch Act sort of prohibition against any participation in partisan political races beyond an individual right to vote. Or, they can have unlimited political rights, but they can't have collective bargaining. If they have both, they essentially become a socialist political party.
In Vino Veritas
It is a war of perception. Democrats go out and create false perceptions, and Republicans do not counter them. Lets face it, facts and logic are on our side.
Republicans talk about tax cuts, Democrats counter with tax cuts for the "middle class," but increases for the wealthy. Republicans leave it at that. They don't point out that it is the wealthy that create many jobs. They don't point out for instance, that when a rich man builds a huge house, the "middle class" has work to do. My dad is a bricklayer. When a millionaire builds a mansion, he has work for months.
Dems run ads attacking Republicans for shipping jobs overseas. Republicans should run adds responding by pointing out that America is a net importer of jobs, and ask people if they realize how much the TV they are currently watching would have cost them if it was made here in America by a union worker making 60$+ an hour.
They should give examples. Contrast Eastern and Western Europe.
These are not complicated. I have confidence that people, not all to be certain, but a good amount, will realize the logic of these arguments. And if they don't, Republicans will be no worse off than they are today.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
You've made a cogent and convincing analysis of the adminstrative sabatoge that has beset the Bush administration and also a clear-headed solution. We need you for VP or head of staff.
I would want you as my right-hand man. You have a vast knowledge and the guts to get the job done. I have a few friends in the Juneau area, and I can say that they should be proud to have had you working in the government on their behalf.
Another excellent diary, as always.
Fides non in bonus intentions , tamen in bonus factum
For more common sense conservatism, visit the Show Me Conservatism blog.
I pulled the pin July 1, 2006, and am now mostly an old retired guy doing a little contract work. Ironically, it wasn't unions or big picture politics that finally made me decide that today was the day; it was a Republican appointee, and my boss, who couldn't figure out which head he was supposed to think with. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
In Vino Veritas
I learned probably as much or more reading this as I do in most weeks, not that I don't read alot, just that so much is just evolutionary comments on old ideas.
This was not.
This was a very good post thank you for sharing it!
Ever consider writing a short manual for new politicians on the lines of The Prince? Sure, it's not nice and comes off a bit mean but it is the way the system was set up to work, and not buy conservatives either. Sounds like you at least know how the system works, and that's an insight we could all use.
Dana clearly show why I love Redstate. Great post....again.
" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln
Following these guidelines, a lot more of our politicians could get us thinking maybe we've found him, or at least a reasonable substitute 'til the next Reagan comes along.
Among the many things Reagan idealised (and an aspect of his political character that oft receives little attention when 'things Reagan' are discussed) was an absolute loyalty to all things Republican. When it is discussed, it is usually in the context of Reagan being the ultimate Republican loyalite. Less noted was his demand that those surrounding him be the same.
And it worked. Can you imagine GWB being able to mount a military attack without the press having prior notice? And if he managed to carry it off, would it be met with public support of his 'get the job done dispite the press' outrage at being left out' attitude, or would we be embroiled in contoversy that never ended regarding his 'secret government' that was trying to take over the world.'
The odd things is, Bush started his presidency demanding exactly the kind of in-house loyalty we're speaking of, but he left the mechanisms for that loyalty to be undermined in place. The result is that he has been perpetually and continually undermined along the way, to an ever increasing degree, 'til it seems like information leaks have become his chief way of communicating with the American public. A lot of that, I think grew from his intitial attempts to reach across the aisle by not only initially leaving a lot of Democrats in place, but actually hiring some (cabinet post Sect. of Trans. - Norm Mineta). Give me a break!
Someone needs to write a 'Republican Office Holder Primer', that incorporates these ideas in chapter one.
in his skin and didn't have the drive to be liked by everyone that seems to characterize most officeseekers today, GWB included. Reagan seemed to relish being hated, so long as it was the right people who hated him. Plus, he had managed to assemble a doggedly loyal inner circle, something GWB never seemed to even try to do; he was more interested in looking bipartisan and "celebrating diversity." Now I'll admit that both of those things represent modern political CW, but I think it is just plain wrong. If you're going to run a government at any level as a Republican, you need to have a group of people around you who'd charge Hell with a penknife for you. Reagan had that, GWB has far too many people around him who seem most interested in what a WaPo reporter might think of them.
In Vino Veritas
I recall reading stories about how they had to take everyone's phone away so they wouldn't leak to the press, and even then they found ways. One thing I'll give W credit for over Reagan is controlling White House leaks.
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Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
I fully concur with your post. I have seen the same at the state level in New York. The Democrats have the permanent civil service just about sewn up and the occasional Republican, such as I, had better know his place. Actually, I got along better when Democrats were in control. The worst political appointe I had to deal with was a Republican. Republicans do not have a large base of aspiring public servants to take over and control government operations so they try to make do with politically reliable people with little or no government experience. In fact, some political appointees view the occasional Republican civil servant with suspicion and prefer to work with the Democratic counterparts.
labor relations guys pretty well; God what a horrible position they were in! If you're not a fairly conservative type when you become an LR advocate, you will be before long. When you're dealing with even a Republican administration that's all into "caring and sharing," it drives you nuts.
In Vino Veritas
Did you ever read Peggy Noonan's book? GWB faces a more difficult task because the left has become radicalized in the last 25 years and now so-called moderates like Powell and Armitage effectively end up covering for very dubious notions.
Achance, this is a great post. I don't know if one could get this kind of program executed across the entire federal government, but I'd love to see it tried at State and the CIA.
will weigh in in detail later
I am in the process of writing my outlined 3rd MSM newspaper column
I comment and write blogs as mind exercise while in process
then when the dead tree column for the masses is finished, I write long blogs
tick tock
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
appointees. The sabotage waged against the Bush Admin by the shadow govt proves your point.
Moreover, you echo one of my pet peeves, ie that repubs complain about govt, media, academia and hollywood but then don't occupy positions within those institutions so that they can effect change.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777