Nation: The Making of A Bureaucrat

One insider's inquiry

The federal bureaucracy now employs 2.8 million people and spends about $461 billion a year, too much of it wasted. President Carter pushed through a bill that would reduce the machine and streamline it, but veteran bureaucrats expect little change. Their methods of resistance were described in unusual detail in the New Republic earlier this month by a Department of Agriculture insider who called himself James North. He also changed the names of his fellow employees. Excerpts:

The first day I went to work as an economist for the Department of...

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