Don't Worry About the Government (the Government Worries About You)

I see the states, across this big nation
I see the laws made in Washington, D.C.
I think of the ones I consider my favorites
I think of the people that are working for me

Some civil servants are just like my loved ones
They work so hard and they try to be strong
--Talking Heads, "Don't Worry About the Government"

Is anyone out there still thinking that the government can save us from natural or man-made calamities? That no matter what, the Feds are going to ride in and restore order? Get things going again? Help us back on our feet? Feed us, clothe us, and protect us from further danger?

Well, I'm sorry to inform you, but you need to stop that.

If the Federal Government’s record in dealing with disasters and crises were likened to a baseball team, it would be way under .500, near the division cellar and looking to trade its high priced stars before the August 1st trade deadline. The roster of botched performances, bungled responses, and red tape-inspired failures reads like a fat kid trying to stay away from Nestle’s Crunch. The Exxon Valdez, mine disasters, Loma Prieta earthquake, Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Rita (among others), now the BP disaster (the oil one, not the exploding plant one), Justin Beiber…. Unfortunately, outside of doling out money and getting out of the way of state and local relief efforts, there’s little if anything the Feds can do to help when disaster strikes.

The point here isn’t (particularly) to slam our President over the oil spill, though he richly deserves some. Nor is it to delve into the government’s oil spill response in a detailed way. Others have done so. By and large, those who have written that the Government acted in this instance consistent with many of the institutional characteristics I discuss here. These prevent the federal government, whether under Democrat or Republican leadership, from swiftly and effectively responding to and managing crises. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Examiner, and many others have identified the government’s mistakes. Which are legion. The fact is, though many feel like Federal Control is the answer to all of life’s ills, states are best able to deal with most natural and man-made disasters.

This oil spill situation provides just one more example of why we can’t count on the government to respond to crises of this nature. It simply lacks the institutional capability of doing so, for many reasons exceeding the grasp of any President, no matter how capable.

Most people probably think the President has a lot of power. But the President’s power largely consists of his ability to marshal political forces to support legislative initiatives, and to appoint the upper management of most federal agencies. Well, and to launch the nukes too, I guess. In the statute books, most of the “power” resides in the alphabet soup of agencies, many of which have conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions. And most laws establishing agencies and giving them powers actually confer only authority to establish regulations, not to create separate government squadrons capable of displacing private workforces and assume control during disasters. The President lacks much direct authority to direct thousands of federal employees into the breach of a crisis to resolve it.

In asking what the government can do, think of the hapless federal bureaucrat at his cubicle desk when the crisis call comes through. This union member, whose career is guarded by the strongest anti-termination protections known in the workforce, dutifully shows up every day at 9 in his pilling short-sleeve shirt and clip-on tie which his wife picked out that morning. Fresh off the bus or walking from the parking lot after parking his 1999 Ford Escort, he looks forward to working a full day in a dimly lit office, eating his pre-packed tuna fish sandwich at noon, enjoying morning and afternoon coffee breaks of exactly 15 minutes each, and leaving precisely at the stroke of 5 to see his kids, who attend mediocre-at-best public schools. His always stuffed in-box never disappears, but long ago ceased to concern him. He keeps a very neat desk, and never hurries to complete his tasks. He’s never actually worked in the industry that he regulates, or he long ago washed out or couldn’t keep a job, or retired many years ago from some lower-level position. The highlight of his year is the annual trip to training seminars held in places like Albuquerque or Racine. He gets $25 per diem, stays in a medium level hotel on government rate, and gets various freebies from the trade exhibitors.

Every day, that guy has to review applications. Applications to approve plans, applications for exceptions to rules, applications to enter the regulated business, applications to expand operations. Or, he reviews reports. Annual reports, quarterly reports, reports on executive compliance, reports on financial resources. They never stop. All of this happens according to his agency’s rules, of which he is a master. His job consists of reading these applications and reports, and verifying that they comply with the agency’s rules. If they do, he stamps “approved” and passes them on. If not, he notes his rejection and provides a brief explanation, and passes them on. He plays by the rules: after 10 to 15 years he can expect a promotion, just in time to help send the kids to a lower-tier land grant directional-school university. This will bump him up to about $80,000/year, with a $2,000-3,000 annual bonus. His annual reviews are strictly objective and target driven—how many pieces of paper did he process? Did he have any reported disciplinary infractions? Did he attend required training? Factors like whether he’s any good or not have no bearing on whether he keeps his job or advances.

Now, when the crisis hits, what does that guy do? Does he suddenly drop everything? Does he say, “forget the rules, we’re springing into action with everything we’ve got”? Does he work feverishly to establish an inter-agency crisis task force, make sure the best agency minds work tirelessly and nonstop to devise innovative and novel solutions?

Not so much.

From this guy’s perspective, a crisis is just another piece of paper. Just one more application to run through the agency’s rules and policies, determine whether it qualifies for particular treatment, and then pass it on. Agencies apply their rules, and go by the book. None of the careerists will ever get fired for following the rules. But they might get fired if they don’t follow the rules. Louisiana wants to take control over oil boom deployment, or get an exception to environmental rules to stave off impending oil slicks? That’s just another application for an exception to the rules, like hundreds of others, to be managed, processed, reviewed, and decided.
The federal bureaucracy isn’t crisis-driven. Its deliberative, and normative. It devises and then applies rules. If the rules don’t contemplate and provide for your disaster, then it falls to the actual agency heads to come up with solution. This takes awhile to implement as mandatory consultation rules, open meetings requirements, and budget restrictions strangle any fleeting agency efforts to rise out of the red tape.

First, unlike state governments, the federal government just isn’t, for the most part, set up to “do” things. The government prescribes the terms on which private entities (and states) may act, and reviews their actions to determine whether they comply with those terms. The feds don’t generally deliver services or take tangible actions in the world. Aside from law enforcement and the military, NASA, the Post Office and TSA are about the only agencies that actually “do” things, and you’re in trouble if that’s your bright, shining example of how great things can be. Even when agencies do bear responsibility to do things, they almost always contract the work to private companies. Agencies like FEMA aren’t designed or equipped to go save thousands of people, any more than the Energy Department can go plug leaking wells. As early as 1993, a GAO report stated “the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needs a disaster unit whose primary mission is planning for and responding to catastrophic disasters.” That same report noted, “GAO has testified repeatedly in 1993 on the inadequacy of the federal strategy for responding to disasters.” Most agencies of this nature merely supervise other entities’ work, including not only private entities but state and local agencies receiving federal funding. Everyone clamoring for Obama and the federal government to “take over” efforts to halt the spill might want to ask, where exactly are all the people, equipment and expertise that the government will use to stop the spill. Federal agencies possess neither the budgets nor the personnel to take over most state and local or private response efforts. States, however, routinely provide for emergency management personnel and equipment. They just need permission and resources from the federal government to use them, and in many cases, that permission comes late or not at all.

Then again, meeting crises head on isn’t exactly something that the average federal bureaucrat lives for. The government doesn’t hire “doers,” it hires “watchers.” As I mentioned before, the permanent agency staffs largely consist of retirees, washouts, slappies, and other mediocrities who couldn’t hack it in private companies or who got laid off. They really like their weekends off, and really don’t like to travel to hot, humid places overrun with snakes, mosquitoes and icky oil. They like to sit in their cubicle, move paper, go to Starbucks at 10 and 2:30, and go home at night. Crisis command isn’t exactly in their wheelhouse. These people “regulate,” they don’t “direct.” For example, the Department of Homeland Security waited for over a week before classifying the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill as an “event” which would authorize agencies to commit resources. Not exactly springing into action, is it?

Another problem is that agencies can only act as spelled out in their rules. Every agency is a creature of statute. It possesses only those powers that Congress has conferred on it, and nothing more. So if Congress hasn’t delegated an agency the authority to hire and deploy massive armies of oil spill cleaning forces or oil well capping forces, it can’t do so. Congress often is very prescriptive to agencies, either because it wants to hamstring the agency and prevent it from over-regulating, or because it wants to deprive the agency of flexibility and require it to act in a certain way to ensure accountability. If Congress requires an agency to act in a particular way, it lacks power to improvise in the face of a crisis.

And agencies typically must enact rules that define how they exercise their powers. Generally, this helps industry and the public, because it gives clear guidance on what conduct industry may undertake, and what it may not. Rigorous adherence to rules also prevents agencies from arbitrary enforcement. If an agency’s rules don’t cover an emergency situation of the nature at hand, then its in a gray area where its forced to improvise. And that’s typically not an agency’s strong suit. Following rules and procedures that have existed for years…that’s what agencies do. One famous example of that came during the Cuban Missiles Crisis. President Kennedy ordered an embargo of the Cuban mainland, in which Naval vessels would stop all oncoming ships. Robert McNamara asked Admiral Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations, what would happen when Russian ships tried to evade the blockade. Anderson replied that the Navy had been handling blockades for 200 years, and they would handle this one. McNamara replied, “I don’t give a damn what John Paul Jones would have done, I want to know what you’re going to do.” Anderson wound up being fired and made Ambassador to Portugal after the crisis. But it reflects the government mind-do what you always do, fit the problem to the solution. The problem is that the rules can never anticipate every weird situation that could occur (though in the case of New Orleans, engineers and scientists had predicted levee failures for years). Now, from time to time, the Federal Government puts together something called the Federal Response Plan. But this largely involves coordination of efforts to provide resources to states and localities, not on how to raise and deploy federal manpower. And, shockingly, critics roundhoused it from the beginning as overly complex and confusing.

Then there’s the brain shortage. Other than NASA, federal agencies aren’t exactly hiring rocket scientists. Actually, NASA isn’t either. It hires people who administer contracts with rocket making companies. Most of the experts are in academia or industry. Remember when Obama met with all those academics to find out what he should do about the spill? Why didn’t he just meet with Energy or Interior Department experts? Because they don’t exist. His Energy Secretary may have a Nobel Prize, as we’re advised ad nauseum, but there’s not a whole lot of brain power at these agencies. They’re administrators, not experts. Low pay, poor advancement, uninteresting work opportunities, and politics conspire to deter the true experts out of government service. Industry and academia will always have more intellectual firepower, and therefore creativity, than the government. Signed, trying 9/11 plotters in federal district court in Manhattan and closing Guantanamo Bay. Great ideas, guys.

There’s also a “who’s in charge” problem, and its huge. When the spill started, the bureaucracy sprang into action. The White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Homeland Security and Environmental Protection Agency all debated for over a week on who was in charge, which agency would do what, and the best overall approach to take. Congress has a way of legislating in response to the issue of the day, blind to overall problems and coordination. Several agencies often have jurisdiction over the same activity, and each can set different priorities and conflicting rules and standards. When the crisis comes, they do what agencies do best-fight over turf to protect their budgets and authority. This simply delays any meaningful government response. Very recently, the US Conference of Mayors criticized federal agencies such as FEMA for becoming “bogged down in procedures” and for the federal government having too many agencies acting without coordination. Louisiana has complained about this very problem contributing to the difficulty in devoting its local resources to response efforts. Alabama has complained about each jurisdictional federal agency having “veto power” over state requests for aid and to approve actions.

Accountability represents another huge problem. There’s no real accountability in government. The President says heads will roll, but has anyone been fired yet? One person—the head of the Minerals Management Service, whatever that is, resigned. They did change the name of that agency though. A President can only remove the upper-level political appointees, but it takes time to replace them. In the meantime, careerists fill those slots. And if the President does fire the agency head, he or she usually “suffers” by returning to lobbying, private industry or academia with a huge pay increase and added clout from having been in government. At the lower field levels though, at which the people do the day to day work, what would you fire people for? Following the agency’s rules? How could you prove to some disciplinary review board that a bureaucrat moved too slowly or made deficient decisions? I worked at an agency where a guy went to sleep every afternoon at his desk. The agency tried to fire him and he claimed discrimination because he found some doctor to say he suffered from narcolepsy. He’s still “working” there. That guy would be leading the rescue forces.

Now a lot of people have asked, “what about the military”? Why can’t we just send in the Navy? To do what? Does the Navy have oil well blowout personnel? Could it evacuate cities, shore up levees? Save large pockets of refugees? Today’s military has significantly “outsourced” its operations. Large varieties of operational positions now are reservists, Guard members, or ready reserve. Or have been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq. During the first Iraq War, the Army had to hire private contractors to extinguish the Kuwaiti oil well fires. Why did Halliburton become so prominent in Iraq? Because the military was incapable of undertaking the infrastructure rebuilding task. Maybe the military could somehow “lead” private resources. But military personnel are trained their whole career to give and follow orders. They operate under rigorously organized structures, each training routinely to carry out military actions. The civilians they would command, however, do not. Additionally, sending in the troops in most cases on the mainland begs the question whether they will supplant local and state authorities. The federal role in disaster relief primarily has been to coordinate funding and to provide resources which the states and cities use in directing their efforts. If we send in the Army, they can’t take orders from Governors and Mayors. They report to the President and Department of Defense. The federal government would need to declare martial law, which would very likely interfere with state and local relief efforts. Finally, the United States isn’t Bolivia or some country ending with “istan.” Martial law declarations should occur only in the most grave circumstances. While Katrina may have been borderline, the immediate problem there was getting people out of the city, not restoring order after most everyone was out.

One more point I can’t resist, which is that despite the President’s institutional limitations, this particular President, despite all his protestations that he’s thinking about how to stop the spill at all times and looking for asses to kick, has exhibited almost no executive leadership skills required of any organization leader. The Deepwater Horizon explosion was April 20th, yet he didn’t talk to anyone with BP until June? He goes on golf vacations and political fundraising trips, while sending his minions out to castigate BP’s CEO Tony Hayward for going to a yachting event? He appoints a spill response panel made up entirely of policy wonks, and not one person who’s actually worked in the oil patch. He demonizes the BP personnel who are the only ones actually trying to stop the spill. He delayed interceding in agency turf wars that delayed federal response. He hasn’t fired or disciplined anyone in government. He has, however, led plenty of consultation discussions, and appointed a study commission. This is dithering by any other name. Obama’s lack of any meaningful executive experience has been criticized in more than one quarter. The New York Times, as pro-Obama a media outlet as one will ever find, has criticized federal delays. That goes straight to the top. Though any President may have lacked many options, this one’s inexperience has not made things any easier. Maybe electing someone whose leadership experience consisted of running the Harvard Law Review and a Presidential campaign wasn't such a great idea after all. I don't want to say I warned everyone about the danger of electing a lawyer/legislator without executive experience. Who could possibly have seen that might be a problem? Who indeed?

So, all of you sleeping soundly at night, confident that when the bomb drops, earth moves, hurricane blows ashore, or riots break out, Washington is going to help...you may want to reconsider. Personally, I'm stocking ammo, canned goods, batteries and medical supplies. I'm not gonna wind up as zombie food.