Trump’s Worthy Effort to Rein In ‘Independent’ Agencies

Despite all the progressive fire and brimstone descending on Elon Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency is making only a down payment on shrinking the administrative state. Firing thousands of federal employees may reduce fraud, waste, and abuse, but the frontal assault on unconstrained government will come if President Donald Trump succeeds in bringing the so-called independent regulatory agencies to heel.

These “alphabet” agencies exercise vast power over the American economy and society. The Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, controls the stock and bond markets and dictates what information companies must disclose. The National Labor Relations Board supervises all union activity in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission controls the telephone and internet networks. The Federal Trade Commission seeks to bless or stop every merger in the nation. These commissions have run riot, and not even the federal government can produce an exact accounting of the costs that they impose on the economy, or even their actual number. These agencies had their start during the Progressive Era under Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and grew under Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Barack Obama.

When it established these agencies, Congress sought to keep their powers away from direct presidential control. Unlike members of the cabinet, the president cannot remove members of these commissions without “cause,” which requires a serious abuse of power or violation of the law. Congress also vests the power of these regulatory agencies among multiple members and requires partisan balance within them.

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