Bureaucracy Quotes - Page 3

• Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism.

  Mary McCarthy

  Liberty, Libertarian, Modern

  "The Vita Activa". The New Yorker, October 18, 1958.

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• A mayor is a symbol and a public face of what a city bureaucracy provides its citizens.

  John Hickenlooper

  Cities, Citizens, Faces

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• I don't want a lot of bureaucracy... I want to run state government the same way we run a campaign - efficient, effective and victorious.

  Charlie Crist

  Running, Government, Campaigns

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• Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Genius, Mediocrity, Politics

  Remarks at a Promotion Ceremony for Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, December 3, 1973.

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• Up or out" greatly magnified the careerist emphasis on holding a position rather than doing a job.

  James Fallows

  Jobs, Emphasis, Position

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• We will cut programs, we will try to rein in the size of the bureaucracy. We will bring federal pay scales that have become so exaggerated into line with market rates.

  Eric Cantor

  Cutting, Trying, Lines

  "'Things Could Get Pretty Messy'". Interview with Steve Moore, www.wsj.com. October 2, 2010.

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• I'm against big bureaucracy in Washington making health care decisions. I just have an aversion to bureaucrats. But it's not just government bureaucrats. I don't like HMO bureaucrats and insurance company bureaucrats either.

  Gary Bauer

  Government, Decision, Care

  Republican Presidential Candidates Forum, usatoday30.usatoday.com. October 29, 1999.

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• The challenge is to manage the Web in an open way-not too much bureaucracy, not subject to political or commercial pressures. The U.S. should demonstrate that it is prepared to share control with the world.

  Tim Berners-Lee

  Political, Challenges, World

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• A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.

  Walter Bagehot

  Art, Thinking, Government

  Walter Bagehot (1867). “The English Constitution”, p.237

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• So many signatures for such a small heart.

  Mother Teresa

  Heart, Signatures

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• It's all papers and forms, the entire Civil Service is like a fortress made of papers, forms and red tape.

  Alexander Ostrovsky

  Tape, Paper, Red

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• Temporary teams of trusted people are generally sent to all Departments and to major agencies of government to assist in planning and to acquaint the incoming administration with the civil servants and bureaucracy that will remain in place in the new Administration.

  Richard V. Allen

  Team, Agency, Government

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• When I appointed the Minister of the Environment to major cabinet status, the Planning and Priorities committee, the signals that that sent through Ottawa were major, because that's what the bureaucracy understands.

  Brian Mulroney

  Priorities, Cabinets, Ottawa

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• The answer for healthcare is market incentives, not healthcare by a Godzilla-sized government bureaucracy.

  Mitt Romney

  Government, Answers, Incentives

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• Health care comprises nearly 20 percent of our national economy, but outdated bureaucracy and red tape have stifled competition and raised costs. As a result, today more than 45 million are without any health coverage.

  John Shadegg

  Competition, Tape, Cost

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• Every year the Federal Government wastes billions of dollars as a result of overpayments of government agencies, misuse of government credit cards, abuse of the Federal entitlement programs, and the mismanagement of the Federal bureaucracy.

  Chris Chocola

  Agency, Government, Years

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• bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Errors, Yesterday, Forever

  Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.358, Crux Publishing Ltd

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• Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

  Franz Kafka

  Cynical, Revolution, Slime

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• No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.

  Ronald Reagan

  Government, Libertarian, Size

  Television broadcast, 27 Oct. 1964

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• Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in the structure, not from their relations with the people they are supposed to serve. The people are not masters of the bureaucracy, but its clients.

  Alan Keyes

  People, Clients, Structure

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• Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.

  Dale Dauten

  Government, Giving, Stubborn

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• The court is the bureaucracy of the law. If you bureaucratise popular justice then you give it the form of a court.

  Michel Foucault

  Law, Giving, Justice

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• Bureaucracies are designed to perform public business. But as soon as a bureaucracy is established, it develops an autonomous spiritual life and comes to regard the public as its enemy.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Spiritual, Enemy, Regard

  Brooks Atkinson (1951). “Once around the sun”

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• No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

  Ronald Reagan

  Government, Political, Voting

  Television broadcast, 27 Oct. 1964

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• There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.

  Elinor Ostrom

  Believe, People, Incentives

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