Administrative Power Quotes

I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go, but politics stay the same at all times. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones. These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is what happens with every administration.

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[Pournelle's law of Bureaucracy]

More emphasis was thus thrown upon the local governments than in England.

What's funny about that office is it's entirely dependent on how close you are to the president, because the president decides what your role will be. If you get on with the president, that's great; if you fall out with the president, power can go away.

Instead of recognizing the State as ‘the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men,’ the run of mankind, with rare exceptions, regards it not only as a final and indispensable entity, but also as, in the main, beneficent. The mass-man, ignorant of its history, regards its character and intentions as social rather than anti-social; and in that faith he is willing to put at its disposal an indefinite credit of knavery, mendacity and chicane, upon which its administrators may draw at will.

It is a pretty bold stand for this people to take, to say that they will not be controlled by the corrupt administrators of our General Government. We will be controlled by them, if they will be controlled by the Constitution and laws; but they will not. Many of them do not care any more about the constitution and the laws that they make than they do about the laws of another nation.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in the structure, not from their relations with the people they are supposed to serve. The people are not masters of the bureaucracy, but its clients.

Liberty is too priceless to be forfeited through the zeal of an administrative agent.

The civil servants will always be there to look after this country. So don't worry... Any political party taking power will have to work with the civil servants who are very well acquainted with running this country.

A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy.

The FCC on any given day has much more influence than the better known agencies like the entire Department of Health and Human Services.

The reality of split government puts a premium on creativity within the administration. President Obama needs to put the right people in charge of the agencies and then have them push the bounds of administrative power to change policy through those agencies. President Obama has a pretty good track record of this.

But I believe that the DPKO at this time was very much involved with American administration and was acting, taking on consideration the demand or the recommendation of the American administration. American administration was very powerful.

If a simple King of England, by his corrupt servants, chastised New England with whips, the [Madison] administration chastened her with scorpions.

The O.M.B. director puts together the budget. It handles every executive order. It is the clearing house for every single federal regulation. It has input into all the management of all of the federal agencies... It is involved with everything. And I thought, 'That's where I want to be.'

… with the stroke of a pen.

An administration without a police executive is powerless and there were many proofs of this.

The taxpayers have a right to say what shall be taught ... to direct or dismiss those whom they employ as teachers and school authorities .... The hand that writes the paycheck rules the school.

I think it's fine when the mayor of the biggest city in Russia consults the president.

What was to be a relatively innocuous federal government, operating from a defined enumeration of specific grants of power, has become an ever-present and unaccountable force. It is the nation’s largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider, and pension guarantor. Moreover, with aggrandized police powers, what it does not control directly it bans or mandates by regulation.

I confess to a prejudice against officialism and a dread of bureaucracy.

Executive power in any nation arguably has more in common with executive power in another country than with the citizens it should serve.

Mr. Truman studiously avoided giving power to his White House staff that has been characteristic of recent administrations. Staff people in the White House, with no responsibility but incredible authority is one of the reasons we're now in so much trouble.