How to Practically Slash Bureaucracy?
Hello, Libertarians of Reddit.
I have recently become interested in Libertarianism. It seems to be a self-consistent philosophy that, if implemented, would reduce or eliminate many of the most drastic ills in our current society (I’m in the US).
I am reading through Boaz’s “The Libertarian Mind” right now, and came across a passage in chapter six that absolutely set a fire under me. It reads as follows:
“Until Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, it was understood that the U.S. Constitution gave the exclusive power of law-making to Congress. In conformity to the rule of law, it gave the president power to execute the laws and the judiciary the power to interpret and enforce them. In the 1930s, however, Congress started passing broad laws and leaving the details up to administrative agencies. Such agencies – The Agricultural Department, The Securities and Exchange commission, the Food and Drug administration, the EPA, and countless more – now churn out rules and regulations that clearly have the force of law but were never passed by the constitutional lawmaking authority…
The result is tens of thousands of bureaucrats churning out laws – eighty thousand pages of them in a typical year – for which congress takes no responsibility.”
After reading this, I refreshed myself on some basic governmental concepts, and recalled that there are really four types of government agencies:
- Cabinet Departments
- Independent Executive Agencies
- Regulatory Agencies
- Government Corporations
While I can’t necessarily say that any one of these categories is fully unconstitutional, there is not a single one of these categories that has not (in my opinion) committed gross abuse of power and unconstitutional acts.
My question to you more seasoned Libertarians is this: How, in reality, could a reversal of this devastating bureaucratic expansion be practically achieved through the system? How could we make 80,000 pages look like a joke, and go back to the times when people weren’t jailed for mislabeling imported flowers?
The only thing I have thought of so far is a constitutional amendment that explicitly forbids the transfer of legislative power to agencies, but that would be nearly impossible and maybe even impractical (I’m open to feedback).
Thank you for reading and for your responses in advance.
submitted by /u/A_Good_Ghost
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