Social Issues

Ezra Pettis Jr.
Public Administration
Chapter 13 Congress

In my eyes congress is the mother of controlling bureaucracies, they control day to day activities of an agency.
Congress can intervene when it learns that an agency is doing something wrong.
Congress creates and maintains the structural conditions in which an agency operates.
In this country congress is the architect of bureaucracy as we know it; no agency is free to ignore the views of congress
Congress also can determine the number of employees an agency can have. However they cannot replace individual bureaucrats.
Federal Reserve Board, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Congress can fix the total expenditures that an agency is allowed to have, delegating what agencies get what funding.
Congress micromanages government through committees and sub committees that decide what happens with certain branches of the bureaucracy.
Congress can now instruct government agencies as to how it wants money spent and laws interpreted.
The extent to which congressional control of administration will amount to congressional dominance of the administrative agency will depend on the tasks the agency is doing and the political environment in which it is placed.
Legislatures ordinarily do not dominate the work of public schoolteachers or police patrol officers for the same reason that school superintendents or police chiefs cannot redily manage work of there subordinates.
Because they cannot observe the task being carried out hinders there effect on that organization.
Congress speaks on behalf of the great number of Americans who want a certain thing, like all Americans want retirement benefits.