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These days, liberals don’t know whether to feel betrayed by or merely disappointed with Barack Obama. They have gone from decrying his willingness to remove the public option from his health care plan to worrying that, in the wake of Democrat Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts, he won’t get any plan through Congress. On other subjects, too, from Afghanistan to Wall Street, Obama has thoroughly let down his party’s left flank.
Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn’t simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama’s revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office.
The regulatory agencies, most of which date from one of the three great reform periods (1901–1914, 1932–1938, and 1961–1972) of the last century, were intended to smooth out the rough edges (the “externalities,” in economic jargon) of modern capitalism--from dirty air to dangerous workplaces to defective merchandise to financial corruption. With wide latitude in writing and enforcing regulations, they have been described as a “fourth branch of government.”
That wide latitude could invite abuses of power, but the old-time progressives who fashioned the regulatory state rested their hopes on what could be called “scientific administration.” Louis Brandeis and Herbert Croly--to name two of the foremost turn-of-the-century progressives--believed that the agencies, staffed by experts schooled in social and natural science and employing the scientific method in their decision-making, could rise above partisanship and interest-group pressure. Brandeis’s famous concept of states as “laboratories of democracy” comes out of his defense of state regulation of industry and was meant to conjure an image of states basing their regulatory activities on the scientific method. For his part, Croly often made the progressive case for disinterested expertise. The success of the regulatory agencies, he wrote, depended upon “a sufficient popular confidence in the ability of enlightened and trained individuals … and the actual existence for their use of a body of sufficiently authentic social knowledge.”
Many of the last century’s presidents--from Theodore Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton--subscribed to this progressive ideal of regulation based on expertise. But, beginning in the 1980s and culminating in the presidency of George W. Bush, the notion of scientific administration came under attack from Republicans and their allies. They began to subvert the agencies by bringing in business executives, corporate lawyers, and lobbyists--the very opposite of the impartial experts envisioned by Brandeis and Croly.
Reagan chose Thorne Auchter, the vice president of a construction firm, to head OSHA. Bush appointed a mining company executive to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration and a trucking company executive to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. To lead OSHA, he named Edwin G. Foulke Jr., a longtime foe of the agency who had advised companies on how to block union organization.
Some of the Republican appointees weren’t business types, but ideologues or hacks who were utterly unqualified for their positions. Anne Gorsuch, whom Reagan nominated to head the EPA, was a rising member of the Colorado House of Representatives, where she was part of a conservative group known as the “House crazies.” Michael Brown, whom Bush appointed to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), had previously been commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association.
COMMENTS (7)
If control of either House is lost, it will because of the fecklessness of the Democrats--- primarily by the Senate and the Executive lead by the Compromiser-in-Chief who has given many signals he has learned very little about the futility of negotiating with those who are intransigently opposed to your existence. Many citizens for good reason don't vote for wusses, wimps, and/or chumps. Patterns of behavior demonstrated in one policy area (say domestic) are all-too-likely to be repeated in other areas (say foreign). My guess is some Iranian Mullahs figured that out some time ago.. Republicans assumed that might be the case from the get-go and so far have consistently won that bet... an ... view full comment
If control of either House is lost, it will because of the fecklessness of the Democrats--- primarily by the Senate and the Executive lead by the Compromiser-in-Chief who has given many signals he has learned very little about the futility of negotiating with those who are intransigently opposed to your existence. Many citizens for good reason don't vote for wusses, wimps, and/or chumps. Patterns of behavior demonstrated in one policy area (say domestic) are all-too-likely to be repeated in other areas (say foreign). My guess is some Iranian Mullahs figured that out some time ago.. Republicans assumed that might be the case from the get-go and so far have consistently won that bet... and Democrats have given little sign of changing their behavior.
Actually the Democrats, whether feckless or not, can't lose or gain control of the Congress. That can only come from the voters. So your statement should say something more like: 'If the Democrats lose control of the Congress it will be because of the pathetic inability of liberal voters to accept getting less than every single thing they want.' Read the article. It points out there are real benefits coming from having the Democrats in charge.
Actually the Democrats, whether feckless or not, can't lose or gain control of the Congress. That can only come from the voters. So your statement should say something more like: 'If the Democrats lose control of the Congress it will be because of the pathetic inability of liberal voters to accept getting less than every single thing they want.' Read the article. It points out there are real benefits coming from having the Democrats in charge.
Dang it - I always knew Obambi was a Bolshie.
Bungler: dead on. Despite conventional wisdom, Republicans are willing to foresake any principle for the sake of power - and the cash and the babes that come with it. (You think the K-Street project was about anything other than allowing a bunch of old, fat white guys to get laid?); most liberals are so freaking afraid of losing power again that they want everything done yesterday, which means going too fast, which means losing power. Sigh.
Judis: "intended to smooth out the rough edges (the “externalities,” in economic jargon)". Well ... addressing "externalities" is not about smooting out the rough edges of capitalism; it is at the heart o ... view full comment
Dang it - I always knew Obambi was a Bolshie.
Bungler: dead on. Despite conventional wisdom, Republicans are willing to foresake any principle for the sake of power - and the cash and the babes that come with it. (You think the K-Street project was about anything other than allowing a bunch of old, fat white guys to get laid?); most liberals are so freaking afraid of losing power again that they want everything done yesterday, which means going too fast, which means losing power. Sigh.
Judis: "intended to smooth out the rough edges (the “externalities,” in economic jargon)". Well ... addressing "externalities" is not about smooting out the rough edges of capitalism; it is at the heart of a functioning capitalist system. The point is this: each profit-maximising market actor seeks the least costly and most efficient means of producing a product or offering a service. However, the immediate costs of production or service delivery do not always capture the "full" costs of economic activity. These are the "externalities": the hidden costs of economic activity. Regulation is simply the market's way of ensuring that economic activity captures the true costs, rather than just the immediate costs. In the old days, if you dumped on the Commons, your fellow villagers put you in the pillory. The genius of Rockefeller was to persuade gullible Americans that, to continue with the metaphor, if he could sell them a mutton shank for a penny less a pound, he should be allowed not only to dump on the Commons, but also to be venerated for his genius in offloading his costs to the community as a whole, while each individual got the benefit of cheaper meat. Meanwhile, three generations later the Commons is gone and the villagers are dying of hunger and cancer.
And so it is with regulators' attempts at ensuring full transparency (labelling, credit card brochures and so on) in economic activity. After all, the most basic principle of pricing in a capitalist system is information. Without adequate information, informed choices are not made and, by definition, you do not have efficient allocation of resources. By providing for proper disclosure, regulators do not, or do not just, "smooth out the rought edges" of capitalism; they actually enable a capitalist system to function and do what it is supposed to do, which is generate wealth by ensuring that resources go to the most efficient sectors.
Ack - whining liberals, is there anything worse? I'd rather listen to Michelle Bachman do Shakespere.
Ack - whining liberals, is there anything worse? I'd rather listen to Michelle Bachman do Shakespere.
Is is only because our political system is so degraded by decades of Republican depredation and hysterical crypto-fascist propaganda that actually staffing regulatory agencies so that they can do their job and encouraging them to do it can be regarded as "revolutionary."
Is is only because our political system is so degraded by decades of Republican depredation and hysterical crypto-fascist propaganda that actually staffing regulatory agencies so that they can do their job and encouraging them to do it can be regarded as "revolutionary."
Yes, Bungler. You've found the winning secret of whine. Blame the voters. Just like Jimmy Carter. The problems can't possibly be with you and the other Blue Dogs in Congress and the White House ConservaDems or WussaDems.
Yes, Bungler. You've found the winning secret of whine. Blame the voters. Just like Jimmy Carter. The problems can't possibly be with you and the other Blue Dogs in Congress and the White House ConservaDems or WussaDems.
You don't a bloated public sector to ensure transparency anymore. Technology can accomplish the same, and is.
Yes, the Gov should produce some goods/services. But the level of required Gov intervention about 1% of what it is now. focus on helping markets function, not taking care of unproductive cronies
You don't a bloated public sector to ensure transparency anymore. Technology can accomplish the same, and is.
Yes, the Gov should produce some goods/services. But the level of required Gov intervention about 1% of what it is now. focus on helping markets function, not taking care of unproductive cronies