Federal Government | Chapter 13
For what reason are national civil servants prohibited from going on strike?
They are essential to public operations and safety.
Which of the following statements about presidential commissions is true?
They provide advice to the president on specific issues.
True or false: Some federal agencies function as independent agencies, rather than as part of a cabinet-level department, because putting the agencies in a department would pose symbolic or practical problems.
True
Congress and the president decide how much money each bureaucratic agency will be authorized to spend in the ______ process.
budgetary
The degree to which bureaucrats must answer for the power that they exercise is called ______.
bureaucratic accountability
Since Congress authorizes bureaucratic agencies, the agencies ______.
can be sued in court if a party does not feel that the agency carried out the law properly
During the policy implementation stage, bureaucrats must ______.
carry out the decisions made by Congress, the president, and the courts
Because elected officials—who must deal with many issues—are generalists, they rely on bureaucrats for ______.
expertise and policy advice
A whistleblower in the federal bureaucracy is a person who ______.
exposes governmental problems such as waste, corruption, and fraud
Because of limited resources, the Office of Management and Budget reviews _____ of regulations before they go into effect each year.
fewer than a thousand out of tens of thousands
Bureaucrats are an essential part of the government because they ______.
do work that directly impacts the lives of Americans
Members of the Senior Executive Service are, in practice, usually assigned to agencies that match their expertise because ______.
their experience in specific policy areas is what makes them valuable
U.S. bureaucrats administer ______ of programs.
thousands
The merit system of hiring civil servants was instituted because of the need for a ______.
- skilled workforce - workforce that could serve everyone, not just a particular political party
Which of the following are examples of regulatory agencies?
- the Environment Protection Agency - the Securities and Exchange Commission
Scholar William West has described the Office of Management and Budget's rule-making oversight as ______.
reactive
Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act for which of the following reasons?
- to protect employees from retaliation if they report their supervisors' misdeeds - to provide whistleblowers with financial reward for reporting misdeeds
Which of the following are ways in which accountability is encouraged within bureaucracies?
- whistleblower protections - administrative law judges - Senior Executive Service
Bureaucratic agencies are at odds with democratic principles because the agencies have ______.
- workers with permanent positions - a fixed hierarchy
What is the earliest step in the resource allocation process?
Bureaucrats develop annual budget requests for their agencies.
The clientele groups for the Department of Education include ______.
- public school teachers - the National Education Association - public school students and their parents
Most units of the U.S. federal bureaucracy fall into which of the following forms?
- regulatory agency - cabinet department - independent agency - presidential commission - government corporation
Which of the following terms are used for the system by which bureaucrats were hired prior to the 1880s?
- spoils - patronage
Which of the following are examples of independent agencies?
- the Central Intelligence Agency - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Typically, a presidential appointee stays on the job for ______.
two years
Top-paying bureaucratic jobs are most likely to be held by ______.
white men
Which of the following accurately describes the demographic representativeness of the U.S. federal bureaucracy?
- At the top levels, white males still dominate the federal bureaucracy. - Women are better represented among the top ranks of administrators than they are in Congress or the judiciary. - The bureaucracy as a whole comes close to being representative of the U.S. population.
As part of the policy formulation process, bureaucrats can bring ideas for potential policies to the ______.
- Congress - White House
What are some reasons bureaucrats are accountable to Congress?
- Congress creates bureaucracies. - Congress funds bureaucracies.
How are government corporations similar to private corporations?
- They are governed by boards of directors. - They charge for their services.
Why are bureaucrats brought into the policy formulation process?
- They are often consulted because of their expertise in dealing with societal problems. - They will have to decide how to fill in the program details of a bill that contains vague or ambiguous language.
Which of the following accurately describe the Senior Executive Service?
- They cannot be fired. - Its members are paid more than their peers. - The president can assign them to any position in the bureaucracy.
What are some ways bureaucrats have expertise in their areas?
- They have spent years working with particular policies. - They have scientific, technical, or other types of training.
What are characteristics of job specialization in a bureaucracy?
- a precise division of labor within the bureaucracy - the explicit definition of duties for each position
In which of the following ways can the president exert control over the bureaucracy?
- appointing allies to head agencies or departments. - issuing executive orders to require bureaucrats to do certain things.
Which of the following are tools available to the president to help hold the bureaucracy accountable and to make them more responsive to the will of the president?
- executive orders that force agencies to act - reform panels, such as the Volcker commission - initiatives such as the National Performance Review
Bureaucratic agencies can benefit from ______.
- focusing on policies a president wants to address - addressing the concerns of voters important to members of Congress
The federal bureaucracy experienced its greatest expansion during the ______.
1930s under president Franklin Roosevelt
What is the legislative branch equivalent of the executive branch's Office of Management and Budget?
Congressional Budget Office
Once the House and Senate vote on their budget bills, what happens next?
Differences in House and Senate bills are reconciled in conference committee.
True or false: Farm-state senators and representatives are no more likely to support funding and programs for the Department of Agriculture than they are to support other agencies.
False
True or false: The president submits his budget to Congress in April, where it will undergo varying degrees of change.
False
What is one likely effect of the Hatch Act, which limits civil servants' rights to engage in political activity?
It reinforces the objective of neutral competence.
How does the court system hold federal bureaucratic agencies accountable?
It rules on lawsuits when litigants attempt to prove that agencies are not following the law.
Which of the followings statements reflects the agency point of view in federal bureaucracies?
Workers at one agency hold that the needs of their agency come before the needs of other agencies.
An organization with specialization of job tasks, vertical chain of command, and standard operating procedures is called ______.
a bureaucracy
When citizens believe that they have been harmed by a bureaucratic decision, they can contest the ruling in front of ______.
an administrative law judge
Groups in society that benefit directly from a bureaucratic agency's programs and thus usually lobby Congress and the president on behalf of the agency are known as ______ groups.
clientele
As compared to fifty years ago, federal employment today ______.
is roughly at the same level
Which branch of government is granted constitutional authority over government spending?
legislative
Which type of spending obligates the government to meet social program commitments as long as the program is in existence?
mandatory spending
The final authority of approving budgets for federal agencies rests with the ______.
members of Congress
The idea behind making the federal bureaucracy more demographically representative of the nation as a whole is that it will make the bureaucracy ______.
more responsive to the people it serves
As compared to regular federal judges, administrative law judges
operate less formally.
What kind of government agencies make and enforce public policy with regard to a specific type of economic activity?
regulatory
Presidential appointees to which type of federal agency will likely have the most influence?
regulatory agencies
Bureaucrats make policy as they fill in the details necessary to implement legislation through the process of ______.
rule-making
Except for the Department of Justice, which is headed by the attorney general, each federal agency has a leader known as a ______.
secretary
An agency that is trying to retain or increase its funding would be well advised to ______.
seek support where it can be found, regardless of politics
Congress will use a sunset clause in legislation in order to ______.
set an expiration date for the authorized program unless it is reauthorized
When attempting to control bureaucracy through reorganization, presidents have generally found what to be most effective?
shifting activities out of agencies and into the Executive Office of the President
What functions, to a degree, as the president's personal bureaucracy?
the Executive Office of the President
