With all the excitement over the frantic pace of President Trump’s first two or three weeks, a few thoughts on how we got here.

For decades Congress has addressed problems by handing power off to agencies run by the president in the executive branch to fix it. This way voters see Congress doing something about a problem, and if the agency fails to resolve the problem, or makes it worse, or angers voters with its actions, it is no longer Congress’ fault. They can run for re-election on fixing or amending the agency’s actions. But at the core of this willingness to sign away their power and responsibility is one basic truth — Congress is no longer capable of managing this multi-trillion dollar operation that intrudes into every aspect of its citizen’s lives. Congress was designed to oversee a small, limited Federal government, and cannot begin to administer the behemoth we have today.

Congress is now largely irrelevant. They no longer pass laws — the federal agencies do, to the tune of 100,000-plus pages of new regulations/laws every year. The only lawmaking Congress does is to undo the harmful regulations coming from the federal agencies. Congress is no longer in control of the budget — they just pass 1,500-page omnibus spending bills or continuing resolutions. They don’t even have time to read the whole bill, so who do you suppose writes it? Their only choice is to pass the bloated spending bill, or shut down the entire government (which they never do). Congress supposedly has oversight authority — but these federal agencies think nothing of withholding info, or slow walking compliance until the until the issue goes away or the next administration is in office.

So now we have a fourth branch of government, the Administrative State, the one that really decides how money is spent, what laws are needed and what laws are enforced (and on who). Every year this branch grows larger, makes more regulations and spends more. It is made of unelected bureaucrats who are tempted by the lure of a powerful government station or trading it for a lucrative position at some corporation they were supposedly regulating.

Until now there seemed to be no escaping the increasing tyranny and corruption of the Administrative State. But now with President Trump, we have hope. As head of the executive branch, he has the authority (and willingness) to cut the agencies down to size, to stop wasteful and corrupt spending and to halt any regulations/laws not explicitly authorized by Congress. It’s too early to know if he will succeed in returning America’s government to the original three branches in our Constitution, but it’s looking fairly promising so far.

BRETT MALIN

Seaview