[LINK] Re: Local Councils

[Stewart Fist]

Mikal says
> 
> Specifically, I really like the way cabinet ministers in the US aren't
> elected officials. Being a cabinet minister distracts from representing
> your district, and you end up with unqualified people in important
> positions.


But you can't take that in isolation.  It sometimes means that good people
are in charge, and sometimes it brings in the worst.

This process means, in effect, that the administration is run dictatorially
by the President -- who chooses his friends, and financial backers, to run
everything.

It's actually part of the American 'spoils system' which isn't well
understood in Australia -- and which, in my opinion, is the source of most
of the corruption of the American political system.

When the administration changes, thousands of apparatchiks lose their jobs,
and are given partnerships in PR and lobbying firms, or become 'adjunct
scholars' in think tanks and policy institutes ... waiting until the next
time their party wins, when they move back into administration.

It is a process which is guaranteed to put lobbyists and corrupt lawyers at
the top of every government agency.

I think, from memory, that the President himself gets to allocate 3000+ top
jobs in the administration to his party-hacks and hangers-on, and he does
this every four years (a lot bail out if they think he will lose the
election). There's even more allocated at State and other levels of the
Federal Government.

This inevitably leads to the politicisation of every part of the
adminstration of government, and floods Washington with 60,000
highly-partisan registered lobbyists every four years.



-- 
Stewart Fist, writer, journalist, film-maker
70 Middle Harbour Road, LINDFIELD, 2070, NSW, Australia
Ph +61 (2) 9416 7458