A lot of what is called 'public service' consists of making hoops for other people to jump through. It is a great career for those who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.
Getting things done in this country, if you want to build something, if you want to start a company, it's getting to be virtually impossible with all of the bureaucracy and all of the approvals.
Many veterans in Mississippi struggle with the bureaucratic process of the Veterans Administration.
Washington is no place in which to carry out inventions
Beaurocracy destroys initiative.
I didn't even have a birth certificate until I was 9 years old, which meant that, according to the state of Idaho and the federal government, I just didn't exist.
And I think it's true of any big organization... Bureaucracies and organizations make it hard to do the right thing sometimes.
Federal rules and regulations too often become seemingly insurmountable obstacles to simple changes that can have a positive impact.
I sighed. I hated the maze of bureaucracy with a passion, but I've found the best way to deal with it is to smile and act stupid. That way, no one gets confused.
Anything devised by man has bureaucracy, corrpution and error hardwired at inception.
Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate.
The customs of the [Khmer] barbarians are so different from our own that even if we were to capture all their territory, it would not be certain that we could change them.
When I travel around the country, I see great companies with new ideas and a can-do attitude. But too often they are in hand-to-hand and pen-to-paper combat with officialdom.
The obstacle for us is not Islam, but the bureaucrats in Brussels.
The regulatory systems in place disincentive innovation. It's intense to fight the red tape.
For many of the brave men and women who have fought on the front lines, returning home means trying to navigate a complicated and bureaucratic Veterans Administration benefits system.
A lot of [bureaucratic] rules were created a long time ago when there were different challenges, and they are now causing negative side effects.
We both got caught on making a bureaucracy work on things that were much bigger than that which they had ever worked on.
I remember Adrian [Maben, director] had lots of problems with red tape and dealing with stuff. I think we lost two or three days. Maybe those were the days we had to walk around the summit of Vesuvius, and we went around to the sulfur pits where the ground is bubbling. It's near here. It's fantastic.
Outside of traffic, there is nothing that has held this country back as much as committees.
Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.
I want you to cut through red tape. I want you to cut through bureaucracy. There is no excuse for inaction at this point.
Government officials tend to become an obstacle when you try to do something new.
You know, you try to move the Brussels bureaucracy, and unless you have some capacity to really break it, you can't move it. It just sits there and stares at you.
The European Union, ok, right, it has a bureaucracy, right. It's sometimes difficult to deal with but so what? You hire a couple of people like me to work the European Union, and it can be done. It's pretty good.
