Jerry Van Goerkom Quotes
I look over a problem and decide what to do. No sooner have I sent out an instruction than it’s overridden by the White House or leaked to the press, or a call comes in from some Congressional staffer irately challenging what we are doing. In business, when we decided to do something, we did it. In government, nothing ever gets settled.
Generally businessmen who are successful do not make good government officials, They are free to make their decisions as best they can. They are not skilled at getting buy in before deciding and having to change if there are some important objectors like Congress or the White House. Rarely does anyone low down in the system sabotage the decision with leaks to the press. The leakers are almost always other high level appointees or elected officials who didn’t like the decision or are miffed that they have not been consulted. Businessmen are used to subordinates following their instructions / orders. They have no experience or skills developed to cope with the realities of democratic government where the higher up you are the more people feel they have a right to tell you what to do and obstruct you if you do not concur.
Jerry Van Goerkom, Successful Businessman was recruited to Washington for a key appointed position, Description of his failure as a government official to George Shultz, Quoted in Foreign Policy, March / April 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
When opposing the appropriations for the then new Hart Senate Office Building:
Paxon himself was one of the ‘whips’ responsible for doing this for the Republicans when he was in the Congress.
President Andrew Johnson had been impeached by the House of Representatives and was being tried in by the Senate. A majority of the Senators voted for conviction but the vote was 1 short of the two-thirds that were needed. Johnson remained in office. These were two of the charges against Johnson. A Century later Presidents commonly did both of these. George W. Bush made reappointment of Senate rejected nominees into an art form but after the Johnson trial, these were never to be considered reasons for impeachment again.
Mead argues that this is a trend that has been operating over many administrations. It could be argued that modern communications and the media have been significant drivers of this phenomenon along with the desire for White House staff to have as much control as they can obtain. Before modern communications, an Ambassador, or a Secretary of Commerce had to make decisions within the philosophical and political umbrella of the President’s general policies. They could not communicate immediately with the President or his staff. But once everyone in the government was connected, the President’s staff could make every important decision. However, with the many different major issues and emergencies of the modern era, the small group in the What House have not been able to deal with them all and the bureaucracy has been instructed not to decide big things without going through the White House. See {642086}.
