The Cure for Dysfunctional Government

In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Todd Purdum takes an inside look at the operations of the Obama White House, leading up to a simple question: "Is our government dysfunctional beyond repair?"

The problem starts, he writes, with the sheer size of the federal apparatus:

Washington is hard to govern, above all, because of the radical growth in the scope of the federal government's responsibilities--it's an obvious fact, but it's where explanations must begin. On the eve of World War II, F.D.R. had six high-level aides who carried the title "administrative assistant to the president." Harry Truman, after the war, had 12 of them: they met every morning in a semicircle around his desk. There are now upwards of 100 people who have some variation on "assistant to the president" in their titles. The sheer number of things the executive branch is responsible for just keeps expanding; the time available to think about any one of them therefore keeps shrinking. This is not just a management issue, it's a stakeholder issue: every special interest in the country is working zealously to keep what it has, or to get something better.

These aides, Purdum writes, "all work punishing hours, because the entire executive branch funnels through the White House."

Over at the Daily Dish, Conor Friersdorf observes that this is all too much to expect one president and his team to manage: "Perhaps it would be better if less depended on the federal government -- in fact, perhaps if it had less to do, its remaining functions could be carried out more skillfully, with less waste, and to the greater benefit of the citizenry."

Here's my question: Why must we always frame this in terms of the size of government? After all, it's as big as it is because of what citizens (and corporations) have demanded of it. And in fact, when bad things happen, from bank collapses to hurricanes to oil spills, the common complaint isn't that government is doing too much, but that it isn't doing enough.

The deeper issue to me is why "the entire executive branch funnels through the White House." Why must White House aides seek to micromanage the operations of government, adding more layers of authority to the decision-making process? What if the president relied on his Cabinet officers, and more importantly, on the career civil servants who have developed expertise in the myriad operations of government, to do their jobs, instead of assuming that only his own staffers can make things work?

Look at recent crisis response efforts: Things tend to get bogged down until a proven leader with demonstrated government experience (Thad Allen is the classic example) is given the authority to deal forthrightly with the situation at hand.

Instead of exhausting themselves by seeking to manage the entire government from the West Wing of the White House, the president and his aides might try trusting the people who have devoted their careers to federal service.