The Reason of the Clerks

Believe it or not, federal bureaucrats can be the taxpayers' best friends.

Terry B. Kinney Jr. from the August/September 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 4)

Lobbyists, sometimes even more powerful than politicians, have considerably more freedom in Washington than do bureaucrats. They can visit offices on Capitol Hill to pursue their clients' goals whenever they wish; career executives must obtain permission from their political superiors to approach the Hill.

In my career in federal research, many of the lobbyists with whom I dealt represented the interests of universities: There are more than 80 major universities independently represented by Washington lobbyists. In addition, there are such groups as the National Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities, which may sound to someone outside the capital like an ivory-tower professional society; they haven't watched it work the Hill in pursuit of federal money.

Once any new administration settles into power, a horde of political appointees descends: Thousands of people loyal to the winning president's party flood Washington. For the most part they are very young people promised an opportunity to impart their "revolutionary, problem-solving ideas" to the agency heads and other "lazy, ignorant bureaucrats." Most are dedicated to ferreting out the waste, fraud, and abuse they heard about during the campaign.

As an expert on livestock production, I was once summoned to the office of one such young man. Waiting in the outer office for a long time, I could hear him and some colleagues gasp excitedly as they pointed out some apparent errors in wheat production records. Apparently they were checking an announcement that the head of the Statistical Reporting Service, an experienced economist, had made in the secretary's staff meeting that morning. He had alerted the staff about an imminent shortage of wheat for export. One young man was suspicious.

He turned up some records that he thought conflicted with the economist's statement and leaped to the conclusion that there might be some price fixing in the making. He assured those who attended the meeting that he had added up all the latest production records the Department of Agriculture had compiled for each state. "There was much more wheat produced this year than there was last year. How could they even think there is a shortage?" he barked.

When the others had left and the young man invited me in, I asked him, "What kind of wheat were you talking about?"

Obviously perturbed, he retorted, "American wheat, of course!" Familiar with the export wheat shortage alert, I asked, "Do you understand the differences in hard red winter wheat, soft red wheat, durum wheat...?" He interrupted, "I don't intend to discuss wheat with you. I want to tell you about a production opportunity that will promote a major new agricultural industry. Perhaps you have heard of my proposal, because I wrote to the previous secretary of agriculture several times."

"Go ahead. I'm anxious to discuss any new ideas."

"Good," he said. "This program can be cranked up very quickly. Rabbits are not like beef or pork; you can produce thousands of them quickly in cages." He continued excitedly, "Under the cages you can grow earthworms to sell for bait. Finally, you sell the humus and start all over again. I've been doing it for years."

His comment about earthworms brought me up short. I'd been the one who had prepared a polite, "thanks-but-no-thanks" letter for the secretary's signature in response to his idea. I sat quietly until he prodded me with, "Well?"

"Very few Americans eat store-bought rabbit meat," I said. "Even if they did, no slaughterhouses for rabbits exist near metropolitan areas. The earthworms are a good idea, if you can get them without the rabbits, but don't mention bunny rabbit fur coats. The animal rights people will run the secretary out of Washington." Within six months he and the other zealous young people were themselves out of Washington, taking the ideas they'd brought with them.

In 1980, President Reagan signaled a ray of hope in the form of a campaign promise of "A New Federalism." It sounded very much like today's political commitments to block- grant billions of program dollars to the states. Thousands of programs would be canceled or turned back to the states where they belonged. The idea was applauded by federal career executives. Immediately after Reagan's election, word went out to all agency heads: Start preparing a list of programs that can either be closed or turned back to one or more states. Like other career administrators, I was thrilled with Reagan's commitment. We had tried for years to close out some programs that were not solving serious problems, while other, more serious, research needs went begging. The sheer political clout of some senators and representatives had kept many useless programs going for decades. We worked feverishly on plans.

In one simple plan we proposed to move three bee researchers from Wyoming to Texas to expand research on the African bee, migrating rapidly north from Mexico. We would use funds saved from the bee research to conduct studies to help solve a serious soil erosion problem in Wyoming. Over long months we developed every detail of the move. We had even obtained the cooperation of university and state officials and important congressmen and senators. Then came a phone call passed from the secretary and on to me: "Don't move the bee research."

Two days later came another telephone message: "Proceed with the soil erosion project."

"Where will we get the money?" I asked.