It is an unreasonable take, precisely because the FDA is a government agency that respond to political and legal forces, not market ones. The whole point of the article is that it fundamentally misunderstands what drives government waste. If you sack half the staff of a private firm, they'll respond by reducing the scope of their activities. Government agencies don't really have the latitude to do that. They have some ability to alter their internal processes, but their legal incentives and political directives push them towards slow, restrictive processes over fast, permissive ones, and they generally can't just say "we're not doing X anymore".
Here's a list of non-negotiable KPIs you have to meet
Or what? Like, what happens when FDA staff slow-roll you because they know you're not going to abolish the FDA, or because your non-negotiable KPIs are delusional?
Or what? Like, what happens when FDA staff slow-roll you because they know you're not going to abolish the FDA, or because your non-negotiable KPIs are delusional?
I think a lot in here depends on how much one thinks that government agencies are actually responsive to political and legal forces... and how much ability they have to alter their internal processes. I imagine there are a variety of answers for the many, many agencies in question.
I've heard legends of a head of an agency taking a huge, 500+ page binder of rules, policies, and procedures to his bureaucratic overlords (plenty of agencies are subordinate agencies), basically begging for some of the constraints to be lifted and other authorities to be delegated down. Many hindrances come from other bureaucrats. I don't know if I'd call this a third axis or a part of the second axis.
The gold standard of have-to-dos are statutes and judicial rulings. I think most everything else is flexible... if you can get it to the right high-level bureaucrat or political appointee to sign off on it. I have to imagine that, like any sufficiently sizable company with loads of legacy internal 'rules', some of them just get conveniently forgotten anyway, unless some top-floor Joe gets a bee in his bonnet about it. So the question is what does the ratio of have-to-dos to flexible look like for different agencies? Of course, this plays into Scott's point; the measurement here is difficult - and different from just counting the number of bureaucrats.
Like, what happens when FDA staff slow-roll you because
I think that goes back to how much one thinks that government agencies are actually responsive to political and legal forces. This is picking a different point on the 'responsiveness to political forces' scale.
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Notes -
It is an unreasonable take, precisely because the FDA is a government agency that respond to political and legal forces, not market ones. The whole point of the article is that it fundamentally misunderstands what drives government waste. If you sack half the staff of a private firm, they'll respond by reducing the scope of their activities. Government agencies don't really have the latitude to do that. They have some ability to alter their internal processes, but their legal incentives and political directives push them towards slow, restrictive processes over fast, permissive ones, and they generally can't just say "we're not doing X anymore".
Or what? Like, what happens when FDA staff slow-roll you because they know you're not going to abolish the FDA, or because your non-negotiable KPIs are delusional?
Fire more of them and replace with new recruits?
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I think a lot in here depends on how much one thinks that government agencies are actually responsive to political and legal forces... and how much ability they have to alter their internal processes. I imagine there are a variety of answers for the many, many agencies in question.
I've heard legends of a head of an agency taking a huge, 500+ page binder of rules, policies, and procedures to his bureaucratic overlords (plenty of agencies are subordinate agencies), basically begging for some of the constraints to be lifted and other authorities to be delegated down. Many hindrances come from other bureaucrats. I don't know if I'd call this a third axis or a part of the second axis.
The gold standard of have-to-dos are statutes and judicial rulings. I think most everything else is flexible... if you can get it to the right high-level bureaucrat or political appointee to sign off on it. I have to imagine that, like any sufficiently sizable company with loads of legacy internal 'rules', some of them just get conveniently forgotten anyway, unless some top-floor Joe gets a bee in his bonnet about it. So the question is what does the ratio of have-to-dos to flexible look like for different agencies? Of course, this plays into Scott's point; the measurement here is difficult - and different from just counting the number of bureaucrats.
I think that goes back to how much one thinks that government agencies are actually responsive to political and legal forces. This is picking a different point on the 'responsiveness to political forces' scale.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link