Transcript Bureaucracies Explained and Iron Triangles

Regulated

 The use of gov’t authority to control the private
sector
 Occurs everyday in your lives
 EPA: require pollution control
 FTC: unfair advertising claims
Why can they do this?

 Munn v. Illinois (1877): upheld Congress’s right to
regulate business.
 Issue: Can Congress regulate warehouse prices of a
Chicago warehouse
 Reasoning: Congress could regulate business practices
as they are a part of commerce
What makes a
regulation

 3 elements all regulations have
 1) A grant of power/direction from Congress
 2) A set of rules and guidelines for the agency itself
 3) Some means of enforcing compliance with the
regulation
Get out of here
Regulation

 Deregulation: lifting of government restrictions.
 Why? (allegedly)
 Raising prices: regulations make goods cost more
 Hurting America’s competitive position:
 Other nations have fewer(less expensive) regulations
 Failure to work well: may be hard to enforce, or just
too cumbersome.
Policy makers

 Bureaucracies/bureaucrats spend about $3 trillion of
American GDP
 Unelected policymakers
 Due to how influential they are, Presidents attempt
to control bureaucracies
How?

 1. Appoint the head of the agency to achieve means
 2. Issue orders
 Executive Order: Presidential order that carries the
weight of law.
 3. Alter an agencies budget
 4. Reorganize the bureau



 _____24.) ____ systems are designed to hire and
promote members of the bureaucracy on the basis of
merit and to create a nonpartisan government
service.
 A.) Patronage
 B.) Civil service
 C.) Hatch
 D.) Civilian
 E.) Military

 _____22.) The authority of administrative actors to
select among various responses to a given problem is
 called
 A.) policy implementation.
 B.) selective management.
 C.) the merit principle.
 D.) the definition of alternatives.
 E.) administrative discretion.

 2.) In the first half of United States history,
bureaucracies tended to act in a client-oriented role.
However, since the early 1900s, the bureaucracy has
become more of a regulator.
 a.) Identify TWO agencies that serve in a regulatory
capacity and give an example of a regulation each
has made.
 b.) Describe ONE complaint made about the federal
bureaucracy acting in the role of a regulator.