One of the Worst Ideas from Congress in Decades

Sep 10 2012 - 8:12am

The New York Times today has an article with a dramatically understated title: "Lawmakers Push to Increase White House Oversight of Financial Regulators."  It's a good article, but is mislabeled because the bill discussed would actually result in Congress subjecting ALL independent agencies (not just the financial regulators) to White House oversight and, indeed, control.  The article also missed the most important consequence of the bill:  a breathtaking, almost inconceivable power give-a-way by Congress to the White House.  Here's why it's such a dumb idea:

First, if the Legislature passed this bill, it would be one of the biggest transfers of power from the Legislative Branch to the Executive Branch in history.  Since at least 1936, independent agencies have been considered primarily instruments of the Legislative not the Executive Branch – that is why they are called “independent” agencies.  If this bill became law, that would end almost 80 years of a primary method that Congress has used to implement its policy  goals and 22 or more agencies would no long be independent of the Executive Branch; indeed, they would be expressly subject to Executive Branch control.  This would be a dramatic and historic change.