Letter to the Editor: Two million bureaucrats haven’t been held accountable to only person empowered to run machine

In a recent opinion article for Muddy River News, Sam Middendorf laments that, among other things, the President of the United States has been “rooting around in our utility belts” in his efforts to reduce government waste.

Barring the possibility that I’ve misunderstood the rambling list of disjointed claims strung together by the loose associations within Sam’s mind, it seems this objection is to the chief executive officer, clothed by law as the person with sole executive power in the federal government, to have power over the mechanisms that drive that branch of government. This has been a common lament in these early days of Trump II: America Boogaloo. But where does this come from?

I don’t have an answer but maybe we can puzzle it out, here, together. 

For the past several decades, at least, the federal government has been dominated by a vast army of administrative agencies employing more than 2 million bureaucrats from treasury to defense to the National Park Service — entrenched in the workings of the government, elected by no one and, if many commenters of the day are to be believed (federal judges included), not even subject to accountability to the only person empowered to run the machine.

A new guy gets elected? Maybe they just drag their feet for a few years. Presidents come and go, you see, but those people have been there for decades.

Now if you’re comfortable for where the car had been going, you might be happy that the President hasn’t been driving it since before Reagan. This might be especially true if you’re bought into what has become the predominant position of the Democratic party in the past 10 years: an enshrinement of your personal political proclivities immunized from the interloping representatives of the people.

I think this gets to the heart of the matter more than anything. 

People want what they want, and they want to win. They want abortions to be available on demand. They want to own whatever gun they want. They want you to be fined if you don’t buy health insurance. They want $50 billion a year to go to their state in grants and give-backs. They want another $50 billion to go to non-profit service providers (that just happens to get funneled back into Joe Smith’s campaign funds). 

It doesn’t matter how they get what they want. The ends justify the means. If it’s popular, they choose democracy. If it’s not, they’ll look to the courts. They might appeal to historic norms. They might just call you a Hitler. There are no principles but winning. 

So when the people who occupy and control the federal agencies happen to be aligned with and willing to be partisan agents of resistance in service to what they want, guess what happens? The rhetoric changes.

“Independent Professionals” are being replaced by “Neophyte Loyalists.” The Justice Department’s independence is being threatened. Senate-confirmed cabinet secretaries shouldn’t access agency records. As if these federal agents should — nay, must — be free of interference from the President, the only person vested with executive power.

This is obviously absurd. 

But then again, maybe that’s just me trying to get what I want.

Zachary W. Clark
Quincy, Illinois