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 4 of 4)

When the appropriations came through, however, money was included to continue the program--plus $300,000 to repair and operate a facility our experts said we didn't need. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, current chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, had served some people back home very well. In the process, he ignored experts and wasted millions of dollars. Politics had beat out expertise once again.

And the beat goes on, whether it is the hog-farming senator who has raised the federal price support for hogs; the tobacco-state politicians who maintain price supports even as scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency research tobacco's dangers; or the politicians who double as AIDS theorists, proposing reductions in research budgets.

Can politicians and career professionals ever find a way to make their disparate agendas coincide? I think they can: The base-closing commission, which recently succeeded in shuttering unneeded and obsolete military bases, is an excellent model. In that case, both the executive and legislative branches agreed beforehand to accept the recommendations of the commission, thus taking themselves off the hook. Real experts were allowed to exercise the magic of logic, and they pulled off the trick of reduced military spending.

Why not wave this wand of expertise over other parts of the government? If politicians would agree to accept each agency head's recommendation for budget reductions, some meaningful cuts could be made--and made to stick. Agency heads could readily identify pork from the past, obsolete programs that could be terminated, and research locations that could be closed. They know--better than anyone--where the waste, fraud, and abuse are: They are forced to administer it. Billions of dollars could be saved. I had a rare opportunity to effect just such savings in the 1980s when Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block allowed me to restructure the ARS. In two years, we eliminated 300 administrative positions, closed many locations, and saved $16 million in annual expenses. Secretary Block ran interference for us and, for a while, stymied the efforts of politicians who objected to the project, although ultimately the pressure of politics did bring our actions to a halt.

Many federal employees are internationally recognized for their knowledge in biological, physical, economic, social, or other sciences. Our political leaders, in a revolutionary move, could mandate these experts to make program decisions based on their own expertise in their own fields. Political experts can set policies, budget limitations, and broad program objectives, but program experts should administer programs.

We need the bureaucrats.