Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Blog


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
June 8, 2016 4:16PM

Federal Failure and Bureaucratic Layering

By Chris Edwards

SHARE

American businesses have become leaner in recent decades, with fewer layers of management. By contrast, New York University’s Paul Light has found that the number of management layers in federal government agencies has increased substantially.


Light argues that today’s “over‐​layered chain of command” in the federal government is a major source of failure. Overlaying stifles information flow, slows decisionmaking, and makes it harder to hold people accountable for failures.


The Washington Post looks at a failure in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that will have you shaking your head. Reporter Joe Davidson describes DHS efforts after the December 2 attacks in San Bernardino, California. The acronyms are all bureaus within the DHS.

The day after the attack that left 14 dead and 22 wounded, ICE learned that Enrique Marquez, who authorities say purchased the weapons used by shooters Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, might be at a USCIS office in San Bernardino. The office was protected by private security guards under contract to FPS.


Five HSI agents, decked out in tactical gear, rushed to the office to prevent any further attacks and to detain Marquez and his wife for questioning.


Yet despite the urgency, coming less than 24 hours after the attack, “the FPS guards advised the HSI agents that they had to stay in the lobby until the Field Office Director approved their entry.”


At first, the guards couldn’t find the director because she didn’t answer her phone. Once located, she didn’t want to allow the agents into the building. In true bureaucratic fashion, the field office director said she had to check with her boss, the district director in Los Angeles, who then checked with a higher boss, the regional director in Laguna Niguel, Calif.


The district director instructed the field office director to allow the agents into the building “to determine what they wanted.” Then they waited.


“[T]he agents were confined to the lobby for approximately 15 to 20 minutes,” they told the inspector general’s office. More than enough time for any suspect to get away.


Imagine five cops anxious to take down a terrorist waiting in the lobby for permission to go further into the building before they could search for him.


After the initial wait, “the agents were escorted to a USCIS conference room by FPS guards, where they met with the Field Office Director,” the inspector general’s report said. “According to the HSI agents’ accounts, they waited approximately 10 additional minutes in the conference room before the Field Office Director met with them. The agents told her they were looking for Marquez because he was connected to the shootings and there was concern that he could be in the building.”


The field office director’s response?


[Inspector General John] Roth said “the Field Office Director told the agents they were not allowed to arrest, detain, or interview anyone in the building based on USCIS policy, and that she would need to obtain guidance from her superior before allowing them access.”


The field office director again called the district director who notified the regional director, who notified an associate director in Washington, who met with USCIS lawyers.


Meanwhile, the field office staff determined that neither Marquez nor his wife was at the office.


The agents then asked for information about Marquez from the USCIS file, but the field office director refused. She did provide a photo.


At some point, the associate director determined that the agents could have the file. That information was relayed back down the chain, to the regional director, then to the district director, then to the field office director. More than an hour after arriving, an agent hand‐​copied information from the file and the law enforcement officers left.

This is how the federal government operates. Why anyone (like current presidential candidates) would want to give this dysfunctional institution more power and control over our lives is beyond me—whether more power over security, health care, housing, education, transportation, trade, or anything else.


Over a vast range of activities, the federal government fails repeatedly for basic structural reasons. The government is a monopoly. It functions through coercion, not voluntary relations. It has a guaranteed source of funds, and thus has little reason to serve the interests of the public. It is controlled by self‐​interested politicians. It receives no market signals and little feedback to guide its decisionmaking. It is 100 times larger than the average‐​sized state government, and thus far too large to manage with any decent level of efficiency or quality.


The nation would be better off if the DHS superstructure were abolished and the overall government cut in size.


You can read more about the causes of federal failure here, here, here, and here.

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW,
Washington, DC 20001-5403
(202) 842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org