Bring Back the Bureaucrats: Why More Federal Workers Will Lead to Better (and Smaller!) Government

In Bring Back the Bureaucrats, John J. DiIulio Jr., one of America’s most respected political scientists and an adviser to presidents in both parties, summons the facts and statistics to show us how America’s big government works and why reforms that include adding a million more people to the federal workforce by 2035 might help to slow government’s growth while improving its performance.

Starting from the underreported reality that the size of the federal workforce hasn’t increased since the early 1960s, even though the federal budget has skyrocketed. The number of federal programs has ballooned; Bring Back the Bureaucrats tells us what our elected leaders won’t: there are not enough federal workers to work for our democracy effectively.

DiIulio reveals that the government in America is Leviathan by Proxy, a grotesque form of debt-financed big government that guarantees terrible government. Washington relies on state and local governments, for-profit firms, and nonprofit organizations to implement federal policies and programs. Big-city mayors, defense industry contractors, nonprofit executives, and other national proxies lobby incessantly for more federal spending. This proxy system chokes on chores such as cleaning up toxic waste sites, caring for hospitalized veterans, collecting taxes, handling plutonium, and policing more than $100 billion annually in “improper payments.” The lack of competent, well-trained federal civil servants resulted in the failed federal response to Hurricane Katrina and the troubled launch of Obamacare’s “health exchanges.”

Bring Back the Bureaucrats is further distinguished by the presence of E. J. Dionne Jr. and Charles Murray, two of the most astute voices from the political left and right, respectively, who offer their candid responses to DiIulio at the end of the book.

John J. DiIulio, Jr. is the Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion, and Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania and has served as Founding Faculty Director of Penn's Robert A. Fox Leadership Program; Fox Leadership International (FLI); Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS); and Partnership for Effective Public Administration and Leadership Ethics (PEPALE). He taught previously at Princeton University and Harvard University. An award-winning political science scholar and popular teacher, he has served as a senior fellow and directed research centers at several think tanks, including the Brookings Institution and the Manhattan Institute.

A member of several government reform commissions, he served as the founding director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives under President George W. Bush. He helped reconstitute that office under President Barack Obama. Dr. DiIulio is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than a dozen books, including a leading textbook, American Government, Bring Back the Bureaucrats, and Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future.