The Seven Rules of Bureaucracy

by Lloyd S. Pettigrew and Carol A. Vance:

Rule #1: Maintain the problem at all costs! The problem is the basis of power, perks, privileges, and security.

Teasley correctly points out that problems, not solutions, are the basis of bureaucratic power, perks, privilege, and political security. In politics, the tougher the problem appears, the more resources must be devoted to it. Political careers have been made by bureaucrats promising to fix problems. Bureaucrats feign trying to fix problems while usually making them worse. This is because maintaining the problem creates constituent dependency and allows the bureaucrat to show tangible evidence that he or she is working hard for constituents and their cause. It also allows bureaucrats to spend lavishly and, seemingly endlessly, on new government programs and employees. Examining the three "wars against" created by politicians in the last 50 years provides ample illustration of rule #1.

The War on Poverty

In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty. This led to an explosion of poverty programs including the Economic Opportunity Act, the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the Job Corps, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), Upward Bound, Head Start, Legal Services, the Neighborhood Youth Corps, the Community Action Program (CAP), the College Work Study Program (CWSP), and recently the new White House Office of Urban Affairs. Texas A&M economics professor Edgar K. Browning estimates that 80 targeted federal, state, and local government programs comprise the legions in this war. US Census figures show that in 1964, the year this "war" began, the poverty rate was 15 percent and in 2010 it was 15.1 percent. Any fifth-grader can see that there hasn't been much progress on the poverty front, especially given the trillions of dollars spent since then. Not surprisingly, once started, most of these programs have never gone away and demand an ever-increasing amount of taxpayer dollars.

The War on Drugs

President Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971 to support the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. With this war came the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and its head bureaucrat the Drug Czar, the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, and nearly three decades later, the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 1998 and the Drug Free Media Campaign Act the same year. In 1982 Vice President George H. Bush began pushing for the involvement of the US military and CIA in drug interdiction. As recently as 2009 the National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy was announced by Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano. This was a coordination of counterterrorism and drug interdiction forces. This war has also spawned drug-enforcement divisions in most police departments across the United States. The apparatus grows larger while the problem grows worse.

Like many wars the nation fights, the war on drugs has been long term, costly, and ineffective. Articles in the Economist (April 16, 2011) and the Wall Street Journal (January 14, 2012) conclude that the US war on drugs has thrown all of Latin America into the cartel drug-production and smuggling enterprise, increasing drug production and smuggling into this country and elsewhere around the world. Despite the expanding price tag, the National Institute for Drug Abuse concluded, "The decline in illicit drug use by the Nation's adolescents since the mid to late-1990s has leveled off." The unintended consequences of the war on drugs have been far worse. Through US drug-interdiction efforts, the cost of naturally growing weeds (marijuana and opium poppies for example) has risen spectacularly, creating market wealth for the producers and smugglers that has attracted international terrorists and compromised the US war on terror.

On the home front, America today is no less ravaged by drug trafficking and drug use despite more than a trillion dollars our government has spent waging this war. The National Institute of Drug Abuse reports that among 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders, lifetime, past-year, and current illicit drug use remained unchanged during the last decade.

The results of the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and Addiction revealed that, while millions of Americans habitually smoke pot, drink alcohol, snort cocaine and swallow prescription drugs, most who need treatment fail to recognize they have a drug abuse problem. The figure of those "in denial" of their drug abuse is estimated at more than 4.6 million — a significantly higher number of individuals in need of professional help than had been previously thought. (US No Drugs, 2009)

The growing cost of fighting the US war on drugs amid mounting evidence of its ineffectiveness can be seen by tracking the recent annual budget increases. Between 2008 and 2012, the president's war-on-drugs budget increased by $1.7 billion (Office of National Drug Policy, 2012). For this extraordinary increase in local, state and federal bureaucracy and the attendant king's ransom of taxpayer dollars that feed it, Americans should expect a reasonable return on their tax dollar. But yet another federal drug agency says otherwise:

In 2007, 114 million Americans — 46 percent of the US population over the age of 12 — reported having used illegal drugs at least once in their lifetime and about one-third of these individuals (36 million Americans) reported having used illegal drugs during the previous year, according to government estimates. (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, 2008)

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