Liberty on Tap since 1984
Beware the Administrative State
Joseph Wesley Postell, assistant director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for American Studies, has a pretty good piece in the Washington Times today on the decline of constitutionalism and the rise of the administrative state:
Postell argues, in brief, that we need to do a better job explaining to the public the evils of the administrative state and develop a roadmap for restoring representative government and separation of powers, rightly understood.
"The question is not necessarily how to make government smaller," Postell writes, "but how to get it back under popular control and accountability."
(Hat tip: Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns.)
The Founders confronted a basic problem: How to vest government with sufficient power to get things done without giving it the instruments to exercise tyrannical control? To protect individual liberty and rights, they established (among others) two basic principles at the center of our constitutional order: representation and the separation of powers. To assure that government operated by consent, they provided that those responsible for making laws would be held accountable through elections. Moreover, legislative, executive and judicial power would be separated so those who made the laws were not in charge of executing and applying them.
Our modern administrative state violates these principles. That also is by design, courtesy of the progressives - the original architects of the administrative state. Progressives such as Woodrow Wilson disdained the idea of government "by the people" and sought to replace it with government by the experts. Wilson complained of America's "besetting error of ... trying to do too much by vote." "Self-government does not consist in having a hand in everything," he argued.
Postell argues, in brief, that we need to do a better job explaining to the public the evils of the administrative state and develop a roadmap for restoring representative government and separation of powers, rightly understood.
"The question is not necessarily how to make government smaller," Postell writes, "but how to get it back under popular control and accountability."
(Hat tip: Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns.)
Views: 4
Tags: Heritage, NoLeftTurns, Washington-Times, administrative-state, constitution, freedom, liberty, progressivism, public-opinion, self-government
Comment
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Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 7, 2010 at 11:13am -
Administrators in the Fed are not Administrators, they are Central Planners, as what they do affects the entire country.
The whole problem is the Congress being let off the hook for the actions of the Federal agencies. Congress LOVES not having to vote on the things the agencies do, since they can point the finger when it's a disaster, and take credit when it's not.
This is dereliction of duty. If the US congress cannot deal with the volume and extent of the administration required for the areas they usurped authority over, then they should not have taken authority over it in the first place.
The agencies have begun to assume authority, and the congress just sits back and lets them, as it would be burdensome for them to have to deal with it.
This is Tyranny. Electing these people would just make it worse, as then they would be able to claim a mandate to do what ever they wanted, and we would have actual Tyrants running agencies, and we would have Fiefdoms.
Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.
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Comment by M.Bailey on May 7, 2010 at 10:54am -
I'm not 100% convinced that the administrative state itself is the problem. IMO, it is Congress's "set it and forget it" attitude towards its agencies that is the problem.
There have to be administrators. For as much as the EPA gets bashed (and rightly so in most cases) Congress can not be responsible for writing ever nit-picking rule for how much toluene you may or may not release per million gallons of waste in any given watershed. The regulation must exist, but Congress isn't elected to work on that level. So having an EPA to set those guidelines is in theory a good thing. The problem comes when the Legislative branch stands such an Agency and then the Executive branch runs it amok. The Executive can put an administrator in change of it, authorize that person to do whatever they want, and Congress has minimal recourse. They just set the agency loose and don't bother with it until the sh!t hits the fan at some later date, but by that point it's often too late and the damage is done.
Also, this is an area where lobbyists have a TON of sway. If a lobbyist can get the ear of some administrator then they can said administrator to write a rule and now it's completely outside the purview of the election process.
Frankly, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the political appointment process may need to be altered. We might consider direct elections of these people.
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Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 7, 2010 at 8:14am
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http://article.nationalreview.com/433584/the-new-despotism-of-burea...
Mathew Spalding calls it the 'tyranny of administration'.
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Comment by Ronald A. Lau on May 7, 2010 at 7:58am
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No, the question is how to make it smaller.
"Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime" - KGB motto (I think)
This is what we have now, with a government who's agencies are allowed to write their own rules, and expand their own powers.
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