ABSTRACT
Government managers search for precision and efficiency, adopting techniques and procedures for dealing with sets and series of decisions in a routine fashion. Politicians play out their roles in the democratic and pluralistic game of politics perplexed by the self-righteousness of those managers and bureaucrats who presume to define “national purpose,” “the public interest,” and “policy goals.” The relative strength of managers versus politicians, and vice versa, in any given community is likely to affect the way in which national policy gets carried out as well as the ways in which federal money gets spent. There are important distinctions between the management of money and the politics of spending federal money. John Kennedy’s policy response to poverty was hammered together in the context of broad social, cultural, and political changes. Frustrations and reduced inhibitions combined to produce social unrest and rioting.
