Sen. George Mitchell on Congress and bureaucracy
George John Mitchell is a former Democratic Party politician and U.S. Senator from Maine who currently serves as chairman of the worldwide law firm DLA Piper and also as the Chancellor of the Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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| 1. We know that Congress tries to control the bureaucracy, but does how do Senator Mitchell’s experiences illustrate similarities between the Congress and the bureaucracy? |
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How can barriers to progress be overcome in government?
David J. Frum is a Canadian-born neoconservative and journalist active in the both the U.S. and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first “insider” book about the Bush presidency.
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| 2. What does Frum see as the greatest obstacle to reforming the government bureaucracy? What organizational pathologies does he identify in the bureaucracy? |
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| 3. Do you agree with Frum’s assessment of the American bureaucracy? What are some potential counterarguments? |
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What happens inside the Department of Defense?
Former U.S. government official Dov Zakheim was the Undersecretary of Defense and Comptroller from 2001 to 2004 in the George W. Bush administration, and was a foreign policy advisor to that administration during the 2000 election campaign.
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| 4. What irony regarding bureaucratic accountability does Zakheim point out? Do you find his argument convincing? |
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