Tag Archives: Federal bureaucracy

Biden’s Power Grab: Executive Order Installs “Equity” Commissars to Rule the Bureaucracy and Centralize Power, by Mike Whitney

Posted on February 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Biden wants the bureaucracy to be totally beholden to him. From Mike Whitney at unz.com:

On February 16, President Joe Biden issued an executive order titled “Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government”. The order is supposed to level the racial playing field by “addressing systemic racism in our Nation’s policies and programs”, but it does nothing of the kind. In truth, the order represents a massive and disturbing restructuring of the federal government in a way that fundamentally changes the manner in which the agencies operate. The new system will feature “equity” commissars who will have nothing to do with “systemic racism”, but will be appointees designated to enforce the edicts of the state. The senior agency official (in these agency equity teams) will then coordinate with the “Gender Policy Council” which is directly linked to the executive branch of government. In short, the administration is methodically building the basic scaffolding for a centrally-controlled police state masquerading as social justice operation. For all intents and purposes, the equity agenda is a cleverly-phrased moniker that conceals a plan to exert absolute control over the entire sprawling bureaucracy. Here is an excerpt from the White House print-out:

Each Agency Equity Team shall be led by a designated senior official (senior designee) charged with implementing my Administration’s equity initiatives, and shall include senior officials from the office of the agency head and the agency’s program, policy, civil rights, regulatory, science, technology, service delivery, financial assistance and grants, data, budget, procurement, public engagement, legal, and evaluation offices, as well as the agency’s Chief Diversity Officer, to the extent applicable. Agency Equity Teams shall include a combination of competitive service employees, as defined by 5 U.S.C. 2102(a), and appointees, as defined in Executive Order 13989 of January 20, 2021 (Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel), and, to the extent practicable, shall build upon and coordinate with the agency’s existing structures and processes, including with the agency’s environmental justice officer designated pursuant to Executive Order 14008 of January 27, 2021 (Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad), and with the senior agency official designated to coordinate with the Gender Policy Council pursuant to Executive Order 14020 of March 8, 2021 (Establishment of the White House Gender Policy Council). (“Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government”, The White House)

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America Is a Technocracy, Not a Democracy, by Ryan McMaken

Posted on May 9, 2020 | 1 comment

American is run by federal government bureaucracies, not elected officials. From Ryan McMaken at ronpaulinstitute.org:

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Perhaps never before in American history have the unelected technocrats played such an enormous role in shaping public policy in America.

In recent weeks, members of Congress have been missing in action. Late last month, the House of Representatives passed the biggest spending bill in history while most members were absent. Member votes were not recorded and the legislation was passed with a voice vote, which required only a tiny handful of members.

Weeks later, the Senate refuses to even meet, and may finally get around to debating some legislative matters in May. As with the House, a handful of members assembled earlier to approve another enormous stimulus bill. Many Senators stayed home. This is “representative government” in modern America.

But if you thought this lack of congressional action means not much is happening in Washington in terms of policymaking, you would be very wrong. It’s just that the democratically elected institutions have now become a largely irrelevant sideshow. The real policymaking takes place among unelected experts, who decide for themselves—with minimal oversight or control from actual elected officials—what will happen in terms of public policy. The people who really run the country are these experts and bureaucrats at the central banks, at public health agencies, spy agencies, and an expanding network of boards and commissions.

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The Deep State: The Headless Fourth Branch of Government, by Ryan McMaken

Posted on November 22, 2019 | 1 comment

The national security bureaucracy that many people think of as the Deep State is part of the administrative state, never contemplated by the Constitution, that combines executive, legislative, and judicial functions. From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:

School children learn that there are three branches of government: the legislative, executive, and judicial. In actual practice, however, there are four branches of government.

The fourth is what for decades now has been called a “headless fourth branch of government,” the administrative state.

As early as 1937, in a “Report of the President’s Committee on Administrative Management,” the authors write:

Without plan or intent, there has grown up a headless “fourth branch” of the Government, responsible to no one, and impossible of coordination with the general policies and work of the Government as determined by the people through their duly elected representatives.

The problem of waste and lack of accountability in this fourth branch, the report notes, has “been clearly recognized for a generations and ha[s] been growing steadily worse decade by decade.”

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