YOU REPORT TO ME, MAYBE: If the President appoints you to a cabinet secretary position, under the Constitution, you must answer to him directly. Unless he delegates that duty to a subordinate, which is typically what happens.

The result is, according to former Office of Personnel Director (OPM) and dynamics of bureaucracy (no, that’s not an oxymoron!) expert Donald Devine, even cabinet secretaries have trouble reaching the Chief Executive. And then we wonder why the executive branch bureaucracy acts like a foreign occupation force when a Republican is in the White House or there is a Republican congressional majority.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I worked for President Reagan under Devine at OPM.