Objective: Explain how the bureaucracy carries out the responsibilities of the federal government.
Starter: What has happened to the ratio of government employees as a percentage of the U.S. population over the past half century?
1.How accurate was your prediction?
2.What is the big story with these charts?
3.Are these charts contradictory?
4.What are two causes of the changes displayed in the charts?
5.What are two consequences of the changes displayed in the charts?
6.Is the information contained in the chart good or bad news?
7.List three government jobs that you would like to see cut.
8.List three government jobs that you would like to see NOT cut.
9.What is one question you have about this information?
Quiz Today: Judicial Branch
Brainstorming
- What does the federal government do (what services do they provide)?
- Considering the above data, why and how has the role of government expanded?
Bureaucracy Vocabulary
A bureaucracy is a large, complex organization of appointed officials. The federal bureaucracy in the U.S. includes all of the agencies, people, and procedures through which the national government operates, roughly 4 million people!
In lieu of a word of the day, we're going to get ourselves introduced to some concepts that relate to the federal bureaucracy.
Let's Meet the USDA!
To get an idea of what the coolest branch of government that nobody knows about actually does, we will be reading from the award-winning author Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Big Short, and The Blind Side), who started writing feature articles for Vanity Fair about the transition of the executive branch from the Obama to the Trump administrations. While his articles (which ultimately became the book The Fifth Risk) centered on his belief that the incoming administration was unprepared and uninterested in what the government actually does, we'll take a look at a section where he spends some time researching some interesting things that take place in the many offices of Washington, D.C. In this excerpt, he examines the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which does a lot more than you might think!
Click here!
Click here!
- What are some common criticisms of bureaucracy?
- Do you agree with Lewis that it is important for government to do the tasks he describes?
- Do you think it's best that some things are best left to experts, even if it is at the expense of democracy?
Roles of the Bureaucracy
Let's continue to explore the executive branch by searching for the main ways that the federal bureaucracy handles public policy, whether creating it or enforcing it. With your group, complete your section of the chart below.
2AB 4B
2AB 4B
Closer: Explain how the bureaucracy carries out the responsibilities of government.
- Make a claim here!
- Support your claim with TWO pieces of accurate and relevant information.
- Use reasoning to explain why your evidence supports your claim.
- Respond to an opposing or alternative perspective.
On Deck
Next Class: Discretionary and Rule-making Authority
Textbook: Read sections 14.3-14.4 (pp. 420-432)
Textbook: Read sections 14.3-14.4 (pp. 420-432)