“Worked Out in Fractions”: Neutral Competence, FDR, and the Bureau of the Budget

Abstract

Presidents seem to scorn the “neutral competence” political scientists insist they need. Franklin Roosevelt (1933-45), however, evidently embraced this administrative approach–even at a time when the demands for presidential leadership were arguably greater than those experienced by any of his successors. Roosevelt thus offers an important historical test case for both critics and advocates of neutral competence. Focusing specifically on the Bureau of the Budget (BoB), we ask what historical circumstances dictated FDR's use of this agency; how, if at all, that use comported with the more abstract notions of a neutrally competent presidential staff; and what lessons, if any, result for modern presidents. We argue that the BoB under FDR epitomized neutral competence, but that this orientation responded to his political needs. More generally, we conclude that what constitutes responsiveness varies greatly depending on a president's political context. [T]he gulf between the textbook approach to staffing the presidency and the approach adopted by most postwar presidents is so great that one may be tempted to ask whether the institutional presidency, originally advocated by Brownlow fifty years ago, has not just been a figment of the imagination of political scientists and public administrators. John Hart, “The Presidential Branch” (1995, 216)