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PAGE 4, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009, THE ISLANDER
D
BILIIC rORJUM
Letters to the Editor and Responses
Bureaucracy and Power Plays:
The Problems with Obama's Policy Czars
By John W. Whiteheod
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2008
"A democracy requires accountabil
ity, and accountability requires trans
parency."—President Barack Obama
in a 2009 memorandum to executive
departments and agencies
With all the partisan bickering clog
ging up the airwaves lately and obscur
ing the more vital news of the day,
it's difficult at times to differentiate
between what's a legitimate concern
and mere spin. However, if you can
manage to get past the political pun-
ditry of Glenn Beck and other media
noisemakers who have been sounding
the alarm over the Obama administra
tion's use of so-called policy czars, there
is legitimate cause for concern.
During his nine months in office,
Obama has appointed an AfPak czar,
an AIDS czar, a car czar, a border czar,
a climate czar, a cyber security czar,
a green jobs czar, a pay czar, a drug
czar, a health czar, a science czar and a
war czar, and that's just to name a few
of the approximately 32 czars in the
Obama White House. And, most likely,
there's more to come.
While some of these individuals
are vetted by Congress, many are not.
As former judge Andrew Napolitano
recently observed:
The czars may be hired without FBI
background checks or Senate confirma
tions and they serve at the pleasure of
the president. Because they work in the
West Wing and directly for the presi
dent, they enjoy almost total immu
nity from any accountability to Con
gress. Supreme Court decisions even
immunize presidential assistants from
replying to subpoenas from Congress
for documents or testimony, under the
claim of executive privilege.
The problem with the use of policy
czars, a practice that dates back to
Franklin D. Roosevelt and became very
popular with George W. Bush, is that
it allows the president to operate in
secret, beyond the scrutiny of Congress.
As a result, the reach and power of the
Executive Branch has expanded well
beyond constitutional limits.
This is a legitimate concern. During
Bush's two terms in office, he managed
to assemble an assorted and impressive
range of powers and greatly increased
the authority of the executive branch
and the reach of the federal govern
ment. However, Obama was supposed
to be an agent of change. Instead, as
we've already seen, he seems to be
marching in lockstep with his predeces
sor when it comes to matters of secrecy
and attempts to centralize power in the
office of the presidency.
In fact, these policy czars are just
another attempt to sidestep our system
of checks and balances, which is per
haps one of the most innovative ideas of
the Framers: the power of each branch
to check the others was intended to
ensure freedom and prevent tyranny.
Just as importantly, it prevents one
branch of government from dominating
the others. One of the chief concerns of
the Framers when they created a con
stitutional system that included checks
and balances and a separation of pow
ers was to significantly limit the power
of the President.
Another problem posed by this sys
tem of czars is the bureaucracy-and
the excessive cost that inevitably goes
hand in hand, funded by taxpayer dol
lars. In our present economic crisis, it's
difficult to understand why President
Obama would continue to spend lavish
ly and further extend the bureaucratic
arms of Washington. For example, Van
Jones, as Green Jobs Czar, commanded
a budget slightly over $30 billion.
The essential ingredient to demo
cratic government is accountability.
Government officials and government
bureaucracy must be accountable to
our representatives. If not, then we
are not operating as a constitutional
republic.
Thus, those who dismiss concerns
being raised over the czars as mere
right-wing scare tactics are making
a grave mistake. Even some within
the Democratic Party have expressed
reservations about these White House
staffers. Indeed, as early as Febru
ary 2009, Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-
W.Va.) voiced the concern that Obama's
appointment of White House "czars" to
oversee federal policy amounted to a
power grab by the executive branch. In
a letter to Obama, Byrd stated:
The rapid and easy accumulation
of power by White House staff can
threaten the constitutional system of
checks and balances. At the worst,
White House staff have taken direction
and control of programmatic areas that
are the statutory responsibility of Sen
ate-confirmed officials. They have even
limited access to the president by his
own cabinet members. As presidential
assistants and advisers, these White
House staffers are not accountable for
their actions to the Congress, to cabi
net officials, and to virtually anyone
but the president. They rarely testify
before congressional committees, and
often shield the information and deci
sion-making process behind the asser
tion of executive privilege. In too many
instances, White House staff have been
allowed to inhibit openness and trans
parency, and reduce accountability.
Mind you, this criticism comes from
none other than the longest-serving
Democratic senator-a member of
Obama's own party and a constitution
al scholar who, according to Politico,
"has always stood up for the legislative
branch in its role in checking the power
of the White House."
(Unlike the rest of Congress, which
is busy scoring points off each other,
Byrd is doing his job by attempting to
hold the Executive Branch accountable.
He actually carries a copy of the Consti
tution with him and frequently cites it
in speeches. The rest of Congress would
do well to follow his lead in this regard.
In fact, they'd be ahead of the game if
they at least took the time to read the
Constitution.)
All of this comes down to account
ability and transparency, something
that was sorely lacking in the Bush
administration. A democratic govern
ment is one that is accountable to the
people. However, if that is not happen
ing, then the president is more or less a
king and the government nothing more
than a dictatorship.
Constitutional attorney and author
John W. Whitehead is founder and presi
dent of The Rutherford Institute. He can
be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. □
Drop Out of the Bucket
By Paul Jacob
Does $40.3 million seem like a lot of
money to you? It does to me. But to the
Social Security Administration? It's a
drop in the bucket.
Or, a drop out of the bucket.
You see, while the federal govern
ment is scheduled to soon reinstate the
estate tax on the wealth of deceased
people, we now learn that it has also
been giving money to the dearly depart
ed.
Yes, an internal audit of the Social
Security Administration revealed that
it paid out more than $40 million to
over six thousand dead people.
These benefits were given out weeks,
months, years after receiving death
certificates. The bureaucracy had been
duly notified. And yet it went blithely
on, continuing to send monthly checks.
Bureaucratic error. Hey, we all make
mistakes. But it's worth noting that
this was an internal audit. Who knows
what we'd catch if it were an external
audit, with teeth?
Lately, the federal government has
been talking over car companies and
banks. Now the president and Congress
plan to take control of the medical sec
tor of our economy. They tell us they'll
cut medical costs by cutting waste.
Yeah, right.
On a cheerier note, we needn't fear
the institution of those so-called "death
panels" to cut costs. The way the feds
work, there'd be no savings -- they'd
still be paying for care long after the
patients were dead and gone. □
A Safeguard Worth Noticing
In this country, politicians understand that the more you
know about government, the better off we all are. So, they
created public notices to be printed in the newspaper.
Georgias newspapers go one step further and also make
public notices, from all 159 counties in the state, available in a
free and searchable database online. It’s fast. It’s easy.
It Serves The Public’s Right To Know.
GeorgiaPublicNotice.com
Georgia Statewide Database of Public Notices