Tag: administrative agencies

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Bureaucracy vs. Economy, elected Government

There may be no area where President Trump’s battle against what some refer to as “The Swamp,” Washington’s administrative agencies, is more pronounced than in his effort to reduce the overwhelming amount of regulations imposed not by the elected government, but by an unresponsive, permanent class of bureaucrats.

The current White House initiated a policy of abolishing two regulations for every new one implemented, as mandated by Executive order 13771.

Estimates are that regulations cost the U.S. economy almost $2 trillion.  But the harm done even by that extraordinary figure is surpassed by the damage done to the American soul.  The concept of government being open, transparent and accountable, the very basis of the nation, has been eclipsed.  In terms of impact on the daily lives of the citizenry, Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court combined all play second fiddle to the bureaucracy.

In 2018, the American Action Forum (AAF)   outlined how the Trump Administration was slashing regulations at a record pace. The study found that the approximately $16.4 billion in regulations emanating from 70 agencies were cut. Despite that, only the surface of the problem has been scratched.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)   notes that “…the cost of government extends even beyond what Washington collects in taxes and the far greater amount it spends. Federal environmental, safety and health, and economic regulations and interventions affect the economy by hundreds of billions—even trillions—of dollars annually. Regulatory burdens can operate as a hidden tax. Unlike on-budget spending, regulatory costs are largely obscured from public view. They are the least disciplined aspects of government activity, which can make regulation overly appealing to lawmakers. Budgetary pressures can incentivize lawmakers to impose off-budget regulations on the private sector rather than add to unpopular deficit spending…”

In its 2019 “10,000 Commandments”  report, CEI’s Wayne Crews  presents these key facts:

  • The estimated $1.9 trillion “hidden tax” of regulation is greater than the corporate and personal income taxes combined. If the cost of federal regulations were a country, it would be the 9th largest, behind India and just ahead of Canada.
  • Each U.S. household’s estimated regulatory burden is at least $14,615 annually on average. That amounts to 20 percent of the average pre-tax household budget and exceeds every item in that budget, except housing.
  • In 2018, the Trump administration issued 3,368 rules. That’s more than the 3,281 final rules in 2017, which was the lowest number of regulations coming out of federal agencies in a single year since the National Archives began publishing rule counts in 1976.
  • The estimated regulatory cost burden is equivalent to more than 40 percent of the level of total federal spending, projected to be $4.4 trillion in 2019.
  • In 2018, Washington bureaucrats issued regulations at a rate of 11 for every one law Congress enacted. The average for this “Unconstitutionality Index” for the past decade has been 28 to one. The five agencies issuing the most rules are the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Health and Human Services, Transportation, and the Treasury.
  • In 207, President Trump’s first year, the Federal Register finished at 61,308 pages, the lowest count since 1993 and a 36 percent drop from former President Barack Obama’s 95,894 pages, which had been the highest level in history. The 2018 Federal Register rose to 68,082 pages (however Trump’s rollback of rules can add to rather than subtract from the Register).
  • In the pipeline now, 67 federal departments, agencies, and commissions have 3,534 regulatory actions at various stages of implementation(recently “Completed,” “Active,” and “Long-term” stages), according to the fall 2018 “Regulatory Plan and the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions.”
  • Of the 3,534 regulations in the Agenda’s pipeline, 174 are “economically significant” rules, which the federal government describes as having annual economic effects of $100 million or more. Of those 174, 38 are deemed “deregulatory” for purposes of E.O. 13,771.
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CEI reported that “In 2017, Trump’s first year, the Federal Register finished 2017 at 61,308 pages, the lowest count since 1993 and a 36 percent drop from President Barack Obama’s 95,894 pages in 2016, which had been the highest level in history.”

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) notes that there continue to be roadblocks to this effort, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court case as an example. “In Kisor v. Wilkie, the Supreme Court squanders a prime opportunity to take back its job to interpret the law by upholding the Auer deference while also recognizing some of the concerns excessive deference presents. Auer holds that federal courts must yield to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous regulations produced by that agency when all other tools of interpretation have been exhausted.”

Wayne Crews will appear on this week’s Vernuccio-Novak Report

Illustration: Pixabay

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Bureaucracy’s Unchecked Power

Despite efforts on the part of the Trump Administration to reduce the size and power of regulatory agencies, the impact of unelected and frequently unaccountable bureaucracies on the everyday lives of Americans remains vast.

On December 3, the Competitive Enterprise Institute  reported that:

  • Last week, 40 new final regulations were published in the Federal Register, after 50 the previous week.
  • That’s the equivalent of a new regulation every four hours and 12 minutes.
  • Federal agencies have issued 3,035 final regulations in 2018. At that pace, there will be 3,285 new final regulations. Last year’s total was 3,236 regulations.
  • Last week, 1,905 new pages were added to the Federal Register, after 2,157 pages the previous week.
  • The 2018 Federal Register totals 62,240 pages. It is on pace for 67,360 pages. The all-time record adjusted page count (which subtracts skips, jumps, and blank pages) is 96,994, set in 2016.
  • Rules are called “economically significant” if they have costs of $100 million or more in a given year. Five such rules have been published this year, none in the last week.
  • The running compliance cost tally for 2018’s economically significant regulations is a net savings ranging from $348.9 million to $560.9 million.
  • Agencies have published 100 final rules meeting the broader definition of “significant” so far this year.
  • So far in 2018, 585 new rules affect small businesses; 24 of them are classified as significant.

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The Heritage Foundation calls administrative agencies the Unaccountable Fourth Branch of Government. “Though typically categorized as part of the executive branch, administrative agencies perform legislative, executive, and judicial functions by issuing, enforcing, and settling disputes involving regulations that have the force of law. James Madison called such an accumulation of power the ‘very definition of tyranny.’ … The modern administrative state…blurs the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances… oversight from the executive or judicial branches is limited. The President lacks the ability to actively supervise the myriad agencies, and Congress has even insulated some “independent” agencies from executive branch control by limiting the President’s ability to remove agency heads at will. As President Harry Truman put it, ‘I thought I was the president, but when it comes to these bureaucrats, I can’t do a damn thing.’

America’s entire way of government—with laws passed by legislators elected by the citizenry—has become increasingly jeopardized as the administrative state has grown to nearly uncontrollable levels.

Joseph Postell, writing for Libertylawsite during the Obama Administration, noted that “Multiple scandals involving myriad federal agencies have placed the administrative state front-and-center in many Americans’ minds. Though the scandals involve overreach by specific agencies, they raise broader and more profound questions that extend to the entire federal bureaucracy because the institutional problems are systemic…Astonishingly, we still don’t fully understand how responsible the President is for the actions of administrative agencies (such as the IRS…) Simply put, if the administrative state is really accountable, legally and practically, to the President, then it is not a “fourth branch” of government but merely part of the executive branch, accountable to the public… Today’s administrative state, therefore, makes a mess of the constitutional separation of powers and its careful adjustment of incentives, checks and balances. In such a system, what role can and should the courts play in reviewing agency decision-making? Here is where a deeper understanding of the courts’ historical role in administration is most needed.”

Peter Wilson, writing for the American Enterprise Institute, writes that “Not all administrations are, like the Obama administration [was], willing to abandon due process and legal restrictions to achieve certain policy ends. But we risk this kind of lawlessness in the future unless administrative power is limited by law.”

Administrative agencies are not directly run by individuals elected by the citizenry. As their power increases, and as they are increasingly governed by career bureaucrats who see themselves as immune from the influence of elected officials, the rights of Americans subject to their jurisdiction becomes increasingly imperiled.

Photo: Pixabay