Department of Paperwork
The “Department of Paperwork” is a nickname for any department of government that requires piles of often-meaningless paperwork. Such deparments in the United States government might include the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. “Department of Paperwork” has been cited in print since at least 1977, when the term was used in an editorial cartoon. Conservative author Mark Steyn has frequently written about the “Department of Paperwork” since 2011.
The jocular name usually does not refer to a possible agency such as the “Department of Paperwork Reduction.” Another ironic fake department name is the “Department of Redundancy Department.”
Wiktionary: paperwork
Etymology
paper + work.
Noun
paperwork (uncountable)
1. A clerical task or set of tasks involving routine written work; busy work; red tape.
2. (informal) Excessive, intricate or meticulous work with documents in an unnecessary and incidental way to more important tasks.
2 October 1977, The Sunday Republican (Springfield, MA), Jeff MacNelly editorial cartoon, pg. 22, col. 2:
(President Jimmy Carter enters the Commission on Federal Paperwork and is told:—ed.)
“First of all, you need need to set up a department of paperwork…”
Google Books
What Can I Write About?:
7000 Topics for High School Students
BY David Powell
Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English
1981
Pg. 60:
A cartoon asks whether government will have to set up a Department of Paperwork to get rid of paperwork in government. Discuss.
Google Books
Laissez Faire Law
By Wolf DeVoon
Lulu.com
2007
Pg. 48:
It was the American majority—an overfed, self-satisfied, obedient bourgeoisie. To the majority it is a matter of indifference, whether their salaries are paid by Lockheed or IBM or the Department of Paperwork.
National Review Online—The Corner
Include Me Out
By Mark Steyn
December 15, 2011 11:05 AM
(...)
And I have no interest in serving as Deputy Assistant Under-Secretary of the Department of Paperwork under Mitt or anyone else
National Review Online—The Corner
The Republic of Paperwork
By Mark Steyn
February 3, 2013 10:03 AM
You’ll recall George McGovern’s post-politics career as a Connecticut innkeeper. Over at Slate, Matthew Yglesias is undergoing his own McGovern moment:
Starting a Business Is a Huge Pain
I’ve been to three offices, filed five forms, spent $200, lost a day of work—and I’m not even close to getting the simple license I need.
National Review Online—The Corner
The Paramilitarization of the Department of Paperwork
By Mark Steyn
February 12, 2013 7:59 AM
Deroy’s excellent column on American government’s “gun culture” is well worth your time, and not just for the mountain of corpses of non-threatening domestic dogs:
A U.S. Department of Education SWAT force burst into Kenneth Wright’s Stockton, Calif., home in June 2011.
conservatives4PALIN
Mark Steyn: Those who can’t, govern
Posted on December 05 2013 - 6:50 AM - Posted by: Doug Brady
Via Mark Steyn:
(...)
For the last half-century, Obama has simply had to be. Just being Obama was enough to waft him onwards and upwards: He was the Harvard Law Review president who never published a word, the community organizer who never organized a thing, the state legislator who voted present. And then one day came the day when it wasn’t enough simply to be. For the first time in his life, he had to do. And it turns out he can’t. He’s not Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. And Healthcare.gov is about what you’d expect if you nationalized a sixth of the economy and gave it to the Assistant Deputy Commissar of the Department of Paperwork and the Under-Regulator-General of the Bureau of Compliance.
SteynOnline
Piper’s Lament
by Mark Steyn • Aug 7, 2014 at 1:47 pm
(...)
By “laws”, they don’t mean something passed by the people’s representatives in a legislature - there’s not a lot of that going on these days - but a little bit of regulatory fine-tuning by some no-name bureaucrats at the Department of Paperwork.