That is obviously a pejorative catch-phrase but in a way, there is such a thing. It's interesting that it's almost impossible to get a definitive number for Federal employees. The numbers range from 2.7 million to 2.1 not counting the military or the Post Office. The Federal government is second only to Walmart as an employer. That's a little disturbing but not the point right now. I couldn't find an overall percentage for the Federal workforce. (Probably just too lazy to deduce the figure.) But employees of all governments nationwide are reported to be 17% of the overall workforce. On a side note, the Federal Budget accounts for about 22% of the GDP. That's understandable.
So, what's the "Deep State"? Each partisan administration appoints about 15 thousand upper and mid-upper level administrators outside of Civil Service. There's no set figure for that either. It's a process that takes about 2 years. These people set the tone and overall philosophical direction of the government in harmony with the philosophy of the Chief Executive. I don't think it's partisan here to point out the Trump Administration was unprepared for this detail of actually governing and that has slowed the process. They were heavy on philosophy and light on the nuts and bolts. They do seem to be coming up to speed.
The government is a fantastically complex 4.5 trillion dollar a year enterprise. Apart from any philosophy, it takes an extensive group of skilled, educated people to just keep the lights on and manage the paperwork. They may or may not have certain philosophical ideas but they do have a detailed sense of what actually works and how to make it work in the real world. They have to have detailed ethics and contact with and adherence to established practice. They constitute the so-called, "Deep State". In other countries and cultures, these people are known as apparatchiks. The political appointees are known as "nomenclatura". My point is, it's a common and necessary development.
In our case, the problem, as seen by some, is when politics collides with that entrenched sense of ethics and utility. In other words, " That's wrong and it won't work." Idealogues don't like to hear that and we are seeing that conflict play out. Hence the pejorative connotation. Something that's making things worse right now is these career people know not just utilitarian things but what's legal and what isn't.
It's not uncommon for political operatives of either party to discover the reason things that seem obvious to them have not been done in a particular way is because they are simply illegal.
This administration has a lot of complete newcomers to government by design. A good deal of the problems we are seeing have more to do with a lack of experience and information than inherent dishonesty. It's always been true that a little knowledge or a lack of knowledge can lead to a lot of trouble.
Politics aside, I don't think we're seeing some deliberate "deep state" resistance. I think it's natural given the circumstances but those being resisted do have to blame it on something.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Thursday, July 12, 2018
A Thousand Points of Light
That was Bush 41's idea. He was trying to sell his idea of a "kinder, gentler conservatism". It was a tacit admission he thought most people found the bombast and bullshit directed at the poor and working classes by the Reagan people to be offensive and corrosive. Who are we to disagree? It was an admission Bush knew we had been moved from making war on poverty to damned near making war on the poor. Bush acknowledged Reagan's "Voo-Doo" economics had turned the working class into the working poor. Somehow, Reagan was able to sell devastating economic stagnation as some sort of success for genuinely bad ideas. As it turned out, Bush 41 couldn't repeat that kind of "success".
Before I go further, it's necessary to point out there were a lot of reasons for that stagnation that Reagan had no control over or responsibility for. The problem with Reagan was that very few of his ideas or actions did anything but make it all worse. Ignore the rhetoric and just look at the stats. I know we have a generation who think Reagan was their kindly grandfather but statistics and results don't lie. It's all there in bold print and it runs thru the fine print like black crepe.
Bush was trying to continue the "voo-doo" myth by building up the Angels of our better nature. He was trying to encourage private entities to take up the slack in what the financially crippled government just was no longer willing to do. All of that to protect the violence the Reagan people had done to the tax code.
To be honest we did a pretty good job. Working people of all intermediate classes had no tax cuts but they did step up charity. We had no relief of our burden we just accepted additional burdens while the upper tax brackets were significantly reduced. Burdens on the economically most productive shrank. Try as we might, conditions definitely deteriorated.
Now we face an official assault on the least among us that doesn't seem to have precedent. It's both gross and subtle. Even Reagan never attacked the hungry. Even Reagan never tried to elicit cheers for the idea of the poor dying in the streets. What sense does it make to attack a simple appeal to charity? There are wheels within wheels even in Heaven just as there are wheels within wheels in Hell or republican party politics.
Well, that's all pretty bleak but the response is encouraging.
There was an attack on and a cut in federal funding for Meals on Wheels. It's been privately funded far beyond what the feds were doing.
There has been an attack on civil liberties across the board. I just read contributions to the ACLU have increased five-fold.
A powerless individual can't be attacked without some sort of Go Fund Me page providing more than enough for their defense.
The children taken into custody at the border have fully funded defenses. Though why they need some sort of defense is a mystery to me.
Look, my point is; here we are, perfectly capable of providing for the things we see that need done. The things I've pointed out are the exceptional cases that have drawn attention. But what about the mundane? Didn't we used to have a government where we all worked together to relieve the exceptional and the mundane? Why do we pay ever more to have a government that doesn't extend help to all? That's not the idea. The government is not supposed to make enemies of some segment of society whether they be rich or totally deprived.
This is America. We encourage the exceptional and support the less fortunate. We've proved for two centuries that model works best.
Get with the program! We're all points of light. How brightly can you shine?
Before I go further, it's necessary to point out there were a lot of reasons for that stagnation that Reagan had no control over or responsibility for. The problem with Reagan was that very few of his ideas or actions did anything but make it all worse. Ignore the rhetoric and just look at the stats. I know we have a generation who think Reagan was their kindly grandfather but statistics and results don't lie. It's all there in bold print and it runs thru the fine print like black crepe.
Bush was trying to continue the "voo-doo" myth by building up the Angels of our better nature. He was trying to encourage private entities to take up the slack in what the financially crippled government just was no longer willing to do. All of that to protect the violence the Reagan people had done to the tax code.
To be honest we did a pretty good job. Working people of all intermediate classes had no tax cuts but they did step up charity. We had no relief of our burden we just accepted additional burdens while the upper tax brackets were significantly reduced. Burdens on the economically most productive shrank. Try as we might, conditions definitely deteriorated.
Now we face an official assault on the least among us that doesn't seem to have precedent. It's both gross and subtle. Even Reagan never attacked the hungry. Even Reagan never tried to elicit cheers for the idea of the poor dying in the streets. What sense does it make to attack a simple appeal to charity? There are wheels within wheels even in Heaven just as there are wheels within wheels in Hell or republican party politics.
Well, that's all pretty bleak but the response is encouraging.
There was an attack on and a cut in federal funding for Meals on Wheels. It's been privately funded far beyond what the feds were doing.
There has been an attack on civil liberties across the board. I just read contributions to the ACLU have increased five-fold.
A powerless individual can't be attacked without some sort of Go Fund Me page providing more than enough for their defense.
The children taken into custody at the border have fully funded defenses. Though why they need some sort of defense is a mystery to me.
Look, my point is; here we are, perfectly capable of providing for the things we see that need done. The things I've pointed out are the exceptional cases that have drawn attention. But what about the mundane? Didn't we used to have a government where we all worked together to relieve the exceptional and the mundane? Why do we pay ever more to have a government that doesn't extend help to all? That's not the idea. The government is not supposed to make enemies of some segment of society whether they be rich or totally deprived.
This is America. We encourage the exceptional and support the less fortunate. We've proved for two centuries that model works best.
Get with the program! We're all points of light. How brightly can you shine?
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