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THE RISE OF THE FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

Jonathan Turley

May 24, 2013

INTRODUCTION

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-24/opinions/39495251_1_federal-agencies-federal-government-fourth-branch

After the Civil War, the United States was 100% taken over by Hook Nosed, Jew Bankers, who left the old governmental stage props up so that the people could keep their silly illusions of it still being there. Since that time there has only been one branch of the United States Government running the show, "the true enemies of The Republic".

Many great men -- all the way back to the beginning of this country -- repeatedly warned the American people about Central Banking, and how they must never allow the men behind it to get a foot-hold in America; because if they did, the American Dream would surely become a nightmare. "Wasted words to say the least", and so it went, the people did not listen, as they seldom ever do -- being the stiff necked, arrogant know-it-alls, lacking in all manner of soberness, managed to squander the greatest gift ever given to a people by summarily ignoring these admonishments, and the ensuing devastating results of their inaction's.

The true owners of the United States government own it all, Legislative, Judicial, Executive, Military, and The American People, such that if any accurate discussion about the Jew owned, US Corp Government is to be had at this point, it must start from this premise, or there will never be a context for the successful redemption of the original Republic. --Rod Remelin

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THE RISE OF THE FOURTH BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

There were times this past week when it seemed like the 19th-century Know-Nothing Party had returned to Washington. President Obama insisted he knew nothing about major decisions in the State Department, or the Justice Department, or the Internal Revenue Service. The heads of those agencies, in turn, insisted they knew nothing about major decisions by their subordinates. It was as if the government functioned by some hidden hand.

Clearly, there was a degree of willful blindness in these claims. However, the suggestion that someone, even the president, is in control of today’s government may be an illusion.

The growing dominance of the federal government over the states has obscured more fundamental changes within the federal government itself: It is not just bigger, it is dangerously off kilter. Our carefully constructed system of checks and balances is being negated by the rise of a fourth branch, an administrative state of sprawling departments and agencies that govern with increasing autonomy and decreasing transparency.

For much of our nation’s history, the federal government was quite small. In 1790, it had just 1,000 nonmilitary workers. In 1962, there were 2,515,000 federal employees. Today, we have 2,840,000 federal workers in 15 departments, 69 agencies and 383 nonmilitary sub-agencies.

This exponential growth has led to increasing power and independence for agencies. The shift of authority has been staggering. The fourth branch now has a larger practical impact on the lives of citizens than all the other branches combined.

The rise of the fourth branch has been at the expense of Congress’s lawmaking authority. In fact, the vast majority of “laws” governing the United States are not passed by Congress but are issued as regulations, crafted largely by thousands of unnamed, unreachable bureaucrats. One study found that in 2007, Congress enacted 138 public laws, while federal agencies finalized 2,926 rules, including 61 major regulations.

This rulemaking comes with little accountability. It’s often impossible to know, absent a major scandal, whom to blame for rules that are abusive or nonsensical. Of course, agencies owe their creation and underlying legal authority to Congress, and Congress holds the purse strings. But Capitol Hill’s relatively small staff is incapable of exerting oversight on more than a small percentage of agency actions. And the threat of cutting funds is a blunt instrument to control a massive administrative state — like running a locomotive with an on/off switch.

The autonomy was magnified when the Supreme Court ruled in 1984 that agencies are entitled to heavy deference in their interpretations of laws. The court went even further this past week, ruling that agencies should get the same heavy deference in determining their own jurisdictions — a power that was previously believed to rest with Congress. In his dissent in Arlington v. FCC, Chief Justice John Roberts warned: “It would be a bit much to describe the result as ‘the very definition of tyranny,’ but the danger posed by the growing power of the administrative state cannot be dismissed.”

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