Bureaucratic Resistance Quotes

In the absence of a crisis, the status quo in Washington is more or less set in cement, as advocacy groups and turf-conscious government officials are able to thwart change.

Changing course implies an admission that the previous course was incorrect, and no administration likes to do that.

You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you'd have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.

My biggest hope that we're going to make it here is that this thinking is being manifested & really employed by the young world. Will they be going fast enough to overcome the initiatives of the bureaucracies & the fears operative in those bureaucracies? It's a very touch & go question.

The 33 different intelligence systems paid for by 15 different agencies need to be brought together…. A national debate on intelligence is necessary! … I am going to continue to fight a system that doesn’t want to hear the word “reform.”

Bureaucrats, dunderheads and knaves have always denounced congressional oversight.

The question nowadays is not what makes government work. The question is how do we make it stop.

As it is so often the case in Washington, key players protect their turf. Strong national security advisors have jealously guarded their role as the President’s chief strategist. Weak ones have failed to compel cooperation from the other agencies determined to go it alone.

… the admirable purpose of Cabinet Ministers, bent on reforming their different departments, but dexterously 'blocked' by the permanent officials

My relationship has never been good with the government.

In every society the permanent government is more change averse than the changing government.

In the U.S., we fundamentally need to do new things, which I think is harder for the government to do. And moreover, it is not something our government actually is inclined to particularly do.

There is nothing like proposals for intelligence reform to activate the anti-bodies of the affected agencies.

Bureaucracies have a natural tendency not to cooperate, coordinate or consolidate with each other. They won't cooperate with each other - unless they are forced to do so by political level authority.

We think our leadership has been too timid to go after corruption, and often times, they bow to the liberal progressive demands of the White House instead of standing up for our values.

The only way to deal with bureaucrats is with stealth and sudden violence.

Instead of fighting terrorism, we were fighting bureaucratic inertia, an implacable enemy.

Remember, most of the bureaucrats voted for Hillary Clinton. Most of the bureaucrats deeply dislike what Trump is trying to accomplish, and most of the bureaucrats think they can't be fired, so they can outlast you.

In almost all city governments in America, the small group of people who don't want change are able to block change.

Nobody can be at the same time a correct bureaucrat and an innovator

The lesson I learned in Cairo still applies. The only way to deal with bureaucrats is with stealth and sudden violence.

[Independent Federal] agencies, like other bureaucracies don’t like being transformed.. They have cultures and they want to preserve those cultures.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

We seek ways to co-opt technological advances for progressive purposes and therefore triumph over the bureaucratic mind..

Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted, it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy.