Lately I can’t help but recall the spring of ’92, when me and my elementary school chums were the absolute terror of our afternoon school bus. Kindergartners and the meek cowered as we bad boys cursed, hollered, battled for the back rows, and enacted some rambunctious mix of Pleasure Island and
I'll take the symbolic win. As the former executive director of a non-profit that fought against excessive Federal regulation, I came to despise the arrogant unelected bureaucrats who run most federal agencies. More than once I sat in an office with one of these asshats while they triple dog dared us to sue if we didn't like their tortured interpretation of a statute. Anything, even symbolic, that puts these rascals behind the 8 ball is just fine by me. Great article. Cheers.
Hackworth, 99.5% of federal bureaucrats are rated by their bosses as "fully successful", "exceeds fully successful" or "outstanding." Source: Office of Personnel Management. The Office of Management and Budget found that in 2000, only two out of 4,617 federal senior managers were rated as "unsatisfactory" while half of the rest were rated as "outstanding." At the Office of Management and Budget itself, 83% of the senior managers were rated as "outstanding" during the same year.
Meanwhile, we have an SEC which let Bernard Madoff conduct a $30 billion Ponzi scheme right under their noses. We have government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who insisted that they would never, ever, ever ask for a taxpayer bailout, until they asked for a taxpayer bailout. You might think that the detectives of the FBI would be skeptical of anything which comes from a political campaign opposition research department. Yet, the FBI swallowed the Russia collusion hoax hook, line and sinker. We have an IRS whose executive, Lois Lerner, brazenly told the Congress that to explain how she did her job as a civil servant would constitute self-incrimination.
So, first, Hackworth, it is highly unlikely that the asshats you had to deal with, or the arrogant unelected bureaucrats in any other federal department, have the slightest idea why the public regards them as asshats. Their bosses keep telling them what a swell job they do and when Gallup or other polls report the public regards them as asshats, they think the public "just doesn't understand" what a great job they're doing.
The sue and settle stratagem is incredibly corrosive - we literally make decisions that no one is responsible for, and no one can overrule.
One recent stupendous overreach was the declaration of 28 million acres of BLM land in Alaska off limits to development. For those unversed in the nuances of the law, The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres of land. One provision of ANILCA was the "No More" clause. That means no more land, zero acres, can be withdrawn from development in Alaska. What BLM is doing is therefore black letter law illegal.
I think the only thing we can do is devolve power back to states. There is no reason the federal government should own 28 million acres of land in Alaska, or that outside environmental groups should have any say whatsoever in its disposition. Give the land to the states and allow them to utilize as they best see fit. The BLM devolves down to a small agency, with a very limited portfolio.
I have no idea why dumping Chevron is a tragedy. There is no possible way Chevron was not going to quickly lead to overreach and abuse. It was against law at the outset and law has rightfully been restored to the people's representatives, unworthy bastards though they be. Anyone who wishes to be ruled by Agencies has not been paying attention, respectfully.
I do think in the more staid, less hyperpolarized political/policy environment back when Chevron was decided it did probably genuinely make more sense than not, and for the first decade or two probably did more good than bad. But, yes, the implications were ominous and the overreaches and abuses probably inevitable from the outset.
This is a good piece. I haven't yet encountered a balanced, detailed description of what Chevron did in practice. I'm told it either allowed the Federal government to function, or it allowed unchecked bureaucratic tyranny.
I'll admit that my biases are towards the second view, and in any case I strongly prefer a nonfunctioning Federal bureaucracy to a tyrannical one. But for fairness' sake, what is an example of something specific and good that Chevron enabled?
What's most amusing about the more histrionic Chevron defenders is that their view seems to imply the Federal bureaucracy was a nonfunctioning entity all the way up until Reagan's second term. Big if true.
I'd say the Chevron principle at its best was kind of like lubrication in an engine, allowing agencies to be relatively nimble and adaptable. Even extremely complicated statutes can't address every novel wrinkle that comes along, it makes sense for agencies full of specialists to have some flexibility and discretion if they can be trusted to follow the spirit of the law, and there’s some room for legitimate disagreement about what that might be. For the first couple of decades, before the culture and media got so polarized, I think Chevron was mostly used responsibly and generally a good thing.
My sense is the beginning of the slippery slope was the array of "sue and settle" schemes, most prominently when the revolving door of EPA administrators and professional environmentalists would work together to achieve a bunch of environmental goals it would be hard to get past the oil lobby et al in Congress. A lot of those goals I’m sympathetic to, and it’s easy to understand why well-meaning people might be willing to bend the rules to save Mother Earth, but it became a crutch relied upon in more and more areas with fewer and fewer compunctions, and then pretty much the whole ball game.
A good example of what you are talking about is the inversion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibited racial discrimination in employment. Seven years later, the Department of Labor began requiring racial quotas in employment with the approval of federal judges. I have long suspected that this cynical double-cross by the executive and judicial branches was the real reason the Equal Rights Amendment failed. The bureaucracy had taught the public that the law does not mean what it says, it means whatever its enforcers want it to mean.
A significant number of US citizens believe smaller government is better government and would like to see a serious haircut. We don't trust government to do a good job at what they are supposed to do and we are certain they can only make worse what they touch that is not in their purview. The Swamp does not want to be drained.
Phyllis Schafly is from my hometown of St. Louis and played a key role in sinking the ERA, I don't know enough about her to say if the quotas question was a major part of her motivation or if it was more of a general cultural backlash.
The Pew Center reports that in polls in 1964, 77% of Americans trusted the government to do what is right "just about always" or "most of the time." By 1980, it was 27%. It is now 22%. This collapse of trust in government cannot be due to a single issue, but many. It was a general breach of the social contract.
That's fair! The corruption and abuse were probably inevitable, but for the first 20-30 years I do think Chevron deference probably did more good than bad before the powers that be became utterly shameless, there were good arguments for thoughtful expert discretion before things went completely south! The ultimate tragedy is that sense of hope and possibility going down the drain...
I understand the pragmatic view but if something needs to be done, the peoples' representatives need to do it. The Agencies will never not look out for themselves first.
I'll take the symbolic win. As the former executive director of a non-profit that fought against excessive Federal regulation, I came to despise the arrogant unelected bureaucrats who run most federal agencies. More than once I sat in an office with one of these asshats while they triple dog dared us to sue if we didn't like their tortured interpretation of a statute. Anything, even symbolic, that puts these rascals behind the 8 ball is just fine by me. Great article. Cheers.
Hackworth, 99.5% of federal bureaucrats are rated by their bosses as "fully successful", "exceeds fully successful" or "outstanding." Source: Office of Personnel Management. The Office of Management and Budget found that in 2000, only two out of 4,617 federal senior managers were rated as "unsatisfactory" while half of the rest were rated as "outstanding." At the Office of Management and Budget itself, 83% of the senior managers were rated as "outstanding" during the same year.
Meanwhile, we have an SEC which let Bernard Madoff conduct a $30 billion Ponzi scheme right under their noses. We have government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who insisted that they would never, ever, ever ask for a taxpayer bailout, until they asked for a taxpayer bailout. You might think that the detectives of the FBI would be skeptical of anything which comes from a political campaign opposition research department. Yet, the FBI swallowed the Russia collusion hoax hook, line and sinker. We have an IRS whose executive, Lois Lerner, brazenly told the Congress that to explain how she did her job as a civil servant would constitute self-incrimination.
So, first, Hackworth, it is highly unlikely that the asshats you had to deal with, or the arrogant unelected bureaucrats in any other federal department, have the slightest idea why the public regards them as asshats. Their bosses keep telling them what a swell job they do and when Gallup or other polls report the public regards them as asshats, they think the public "just doesn't understand" what a great job they're doing.
The sue and settle stratagem is incredibly corrosive - we literally make decisions that no one is responsible for, and no one can overrule.
One recent stupendous overreach was the declaration of 28 million acres of BLM land in Alaska off limits to development. For those unversed in the nuances of the law, The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) is a United States federal law signed by President Jimmy Carter on December 2, 1980. ANILCA provided varying degrees of special protection to over 157,000,000 acres of land. One provision of ANILCA was the "No More" clause. That means no more land, zero acres, can be withdrawn from development in Alaska. What BLM is doing is therefore black letter law illegal.
I think the only thing we can do is devolve power back to states. There is no reason the federal government should own 28 million acres of land in Alaska, or that outside environmental groups should have any say whatsoever in its disposition. Give the land to the states and allow them to utilize as they best see fit. The BLM devolves down to a small agency, with a very limited portfolio.
This is a strange argument, particularly in the case of Alaska. Every penny for its purchase from Russia was paid for by the American taxpayer.
The school bus analogy works beautifully— as does your title. Well done, TIE!
I have no idea why dumping Chevron is a tragedy. There is no possible way Chevron was not going to quickly lead to overreach and abuse. It was against law at the outset and law has rightfully been restored to the people's representatives, unworthy bastards though they be. Anyone who wishes to be ruled by Agencies has not been paying attention, respectfully.
I do think in the more staid, less hyperpolarized political/policy environment back when Chevron was decided it did probably genuinely make more sense than not, and for the first decade or two probably did more good than bad. But, yes, the implications were ominous and the overreaches and abuses probably inevitable from the outset.
This is a good piece. I haven't yet encountered a balanced, detailed description of what Chevron did in practice. I'm told it either allowed the Federal government to function, or it allowed unchecked bureaucratic tyranny.
I'll admit that my biases are towards the second view, and in any case I strongly prefer a nonfunctioning Federal bureaucracy to a tyrannical one. But for fairness' sake, what is an example of something specific and good that Chevron enabled?
What's most amusing about the more histrionic Chevron defenders is that their view seems to imply the Federal bureaucracy was a nonfunctioning entity all the way up until Reagan's second term. Big if true.
I'd say the Chevron principle at its best was kind of like lubrication in an engine, allowing agencies to be relatively nimble and adaptable. Even extremely complicated statutes can't address every novel wrinkle that comes along, it makes sense for agencies full of specialists to have some flexibility and discretion if they can be trusted to follow the spirit of the law, and there’s some room for legitimate disagreement about what that might be. For the first couple of decades, before the culture and media got so polarized, I think Chevron was mostly used responsibly and generally a good thing.
My sense is the beginning of the slippery slope was the array of "sue and settle" schemes, most prominently when the revolving door of EPA administrators and professional environmentalists would work together to achieve a bunch of environmental goals it would be hard to get past the oil lobby et al in Congress. A lot of those goals I’m sympathetic to, and it’s easy to understand why well-meaning people might be willing to bend the rules to save Mother Earth, but it became a crutch relied upon in more and more areas with fewer and fewer compunctions, and then pretty much the whole ball game.
Nimble and adaptable means they could make up rules out of whole cloth. Hardly limited government, certainly not good government.
A good example of what you are talking about is the inversion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibited racial discrimination in employment. Seven years later, the Department of Labor began requiring racial quotas in employment with the approval of federal judges. I have long suspected that this cynical double-cross by the executive and judicial branches was the real reason the Equal Rights Amendment failed. The bureaucracy had taught the public that the law does not mean what it says, it means whatever its enforcers want it to mean.
A significant number of US citizens believe smaller government is better government and would like to see a serious haircut. We don't trust government to do a good job at what they are supposed to do and we are certain they can only make worse what they touch that is not in their purview. The Swamp does not want to be drained.
Phyllis Schafly is from my hometown of St. Louis and played a key role in sinking the ERA, I don't know enough about her to say if the quotas question was a major part of her motivation or if it was more of a general cultural backlash.
The Pew Center reports that in polls in 1964, 77% of Americans trusted the government to do what is right "just about always" or "most of the time." By 1980, it was 27%. It is now 22%. This collapse of trust in government cannot be due to a single issue, but many. It was a general breach of the social contract.
That's fair! The corruption and abuse were probably inevitable, but for the first 20-30 years I do think Chevron deference probably did more good than bad before the powers that be became utterly shameless, there were good arguments for thoughtful expert discretion before things went completely south! The ultimate tragedy is that sense of hope and possibility going down the drain...
I understand the pragmatic view but if something needs to be done, the peoples' representatives need to do it. The Agencies will never not look out for themselves first.
Cheers.
I regret having been dragged kicking and screaming to your point of view... reality bites!
It does, but it is also freeing.