Admirative State
December 5,2024
Newsletter
Restoring America
I believe that we see God moving in our nation. We must continue to fight and pray. We accept the words of the people in the government many times without question. We don’t need to just accept what someone says is true about our constitution and other parts of our government. We need an understanding of our government and how it works. We are going to start with the administrative state. This is one thing that Trump wants to change, and I agree. The other thing is the Federal Reserve. We will look at the Federal Reserve latter. We will look at what the government has done to our money.
For those who hold the Constitution of the United States in high regard and who are concerned about the fate of its principles in our contemporary practice of government, the modern state ought to receive significant attention. The reason for this is that the ideas that gave rise to what is today called "the administrative state" are fundamentally at odds with those that gave rise to our Constitution. In fact, the original Progressive-Era architects of the administrative state understood this quite clearly, as they made advocacy of this new approach to government an important part of their direct, open, comprehensive attack on the American Constitution.
These administrative agencies, along with countless others, “were the product of a political climate that was receptive to a variety of particularized complaints that the market needed to be policed with greater vigor.” Today, the government has 15 major departments and more than 450 supporting and independent agencies. These same federal agencies regulate every aspect of our lives.
As a practical matter, the modern state comes out of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which launched a large bureaucracy and empowered it with broad governing authority. Also, as a practical matter, the agencies comprising the bureaucracy reside within the executive branch of our national government, but their powers transcend the traditional boundaries of executive power to include both legislative and judicial functions, and these powers are often exercised in a manner that is largely independent of presidential control and altogether independent of political control. During this time the Federal Reserve was also formed.
One way that the immense amount of federal regulatory agencies and administration was justified during the Progressive Era was the theory of the living Constitution. This theory sets out the idea that the Constitution must be read and interpreted based on current developments and changes in societal conditions. According to David Dieteman, this theory purports that “the federal constitution means whatever it ought to mean at a given time. It necessarily follows from this that it will not mean the same thing at different times.” This theory was developed during the Progressive Era. One of the most influential proponents of the living Constitution theory was President Woodrow Wilson. In his book The New Freedom, Wilson set out the theory that the Constitution should be interpreted considering changing times and the theory of Darwinism.
There is a reason for this. Members of Congress are elected and should be directly accountable to their constituents. This arrangement is supposedly the core of our political system. By passing along its power to administrative agencies and simply calling them regulations instead of laws, Congress is allowing unelected bureaucrats to do its job.
Today, it seems that there is no limit to what the federal government may control. Although the Constitution of the United States granted specific powers to each branch of the federal government, this changed radically during the Progressive Era. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson set the standard for finding ways around the Constitution in order to claim more power for the federal government and themselves. Their ways have been manifested in the massive amount of federal regulation and federal agencies that we have today. One effect of finding ways to get around the Constitution is diminished accountability and loss of freedom. You may be sentenced to jail or denied probation based on the guidelines set out by a group of experts that you did not elect, have your garbage searched by a federal agent without a warrant, or be punished for attempting to sell unpasteurized milk to those who want it. The Progressives have left us with a huge federal government with almost unlimited power and reach into our daily lives, including our minds and our bodies.
The administrative state is an assault on constitutional principles government by consent, the separation of powers, and the rights of individuals that liberals and conservatives hold dear. The key to reform is that it be grounded in a proper understanding of these principles, not in the hope of immediate short-term gain or narrow self-interest. If we begin with constitutional principles and can communicate those principles and their relevance to the public in a clear manner, the reforms envisioned in these articles we can see a change. It is high time that Americans work together to forge an alternative to the administrative state so that we preserve our constitutional principles for future generations. More to come on the administrative state.
March 13, 2025
Newsletter
Restoring America
In my newsletter on December 5, 2024, I wrote on the Administrative State. With all that is going on with Trump going after the Administrative State I felt I needed to write more on this subject. We hear people saying that Musk was not elected so why should he being working to get rid of all the agencies. We need to realize that these agencies were not elected either.
Over the past 100 years, our government has been transformed from a limited, constitutional, federal republic to a centralized administrative state that for the most part exists outside the structure of the Constitution and wields nearly unlimited power. This administrative state has been constructed as a result of a massive expansion of the national government’s power. When the Founders created our Constitution, they entrusted only limited powers to the national government and specifically enumerated those powers in the Constitution itself. A government that only had to carry out a limited number of functions could do so through the institutions and procedures established by the Constitution.
But as the national government expanded and began to focus more and more on every aspect of citizens’ lives, the need for a new kind of government—one focused on regulating the numerous activities of citizens rather than on protecting their individual rights—became apparent. In the United States, this new form of government is the administrative state. In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville warned that under such a government, citizens would become “nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
As the modern administrative state has grown and metastasized over the past decades, it has taken many forms, to the point of becoming the primary method of politics and policymaking. The myriad agencies and departments that make up this administrative state operate as a “fourth branch” of government that typically combines the powers of the other three and makes policy with little regard for the rights and views of citizens. In terms of actual policy, most of the action is located in administrative agencies and departments, not in the Congress and the President as is commonly thought. Unelected bureaucrats—not elected representatives, are running the show. One of the greatest long-term challenges facing the United States is the restoration of limited constitutional government. Central to that objective, and an essential aspect of changing America’s course, is the dismantling of the administrative state that so threatens our self-governing republic.
We have seen how the administrative state was established a century ago and gradually expanded into the leviathan that rules us today. The first step in reclaiming our constitutional principles and putting citizens back in control of their government is to survey the constitutional damage.
How, exactly, does the administrative state do harm to our basic principles? There are four major constitutional problems.
The administrative state combines the powers of government in the hands of the same officials in violation of the separation of powers principle.
It is based on unconstitutional delegations of legislative power from Congress to bureaucrats and administrators.
It violates the principle of republican government, which requires that power—especially legislative power—be derived from the consent of the governed, expressed directly or indirectly through lows to adjudicate disputes is fundamentally opposed to the protections offered by the rule of law in the traditional judicial process.
All four of these constitutional issues are alarming, but when they are considered together, it becomes apparent that the administrative state is nothing short of a transformation of the American regime from a republic to a bureaucracy.
March 18,2025
Newsletter
Restoring America
This newsletter is to let people know what is happening in our nation. Our nation has been in trouble for some time, but we can see some light starting to show. I wrote a book on the constitution because I felt that most people did not understand what our constitution was all about. The Administrative State is part of the government that is wanting to take away our freedom and rights. Trump is working to stop this. I don’t think that we understand the Administrative State.
“For decades, career government officials have routinely interpreted congressional legislation on what can politely be described as a long leash. These decisions have often badly affected the lives of everyday citizens, trapping their interests within the growing labyrinth that has become our federal government. The administrative state has run rampant for too long.
In a recent press conference, Musk talked about the role of the average citizen in the federal bureaucracy. To flourish, a democracy must truly be “ruled by the people,” hence the Greek origins of the word itself. Alongside Trump, Musk talked about “fixing the feedback loop” so that our democracy can be restored to a government that is truly responsive to its citizens and their needs.
The left is going to continue fearmongering as long as they can, but the people really don’t care if Washington is being turned upside down. Indeed, it is what many of them sent Trump there to do: diminish the bureaucracy and get real work done for the country. Don’t get in the way of hardworking families who are chasing the American dream. That is exactly what is starting to happen.
The Trump administration is solving a constitutional crisis, not manufacturing one.”
The Left will continue their attacks, but the American people see through their games. President Trump and his team are bringing long-overdue accountability to Washington, and the results speak for themselves.” Ben Carson
Many modern administrative agencies clearly violate the Constitution’s principle of separation of powers by combining legislative, executive, and judicial power in the same hands. James Madison explains in Federalist No. 47 that “the combination of all powers legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
In Madison’s view, the very act of combining all powers of government in the same hands is tyrannical, regardless of whether the official exercising these powers is benevolent. This is because the temptation to abuse that power will always be too great a temptation for human nature to withstand: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Men, alas, are not angels During the Progressive Era, in the early 20th century, the principle of the separation of powers was openly criticized. This led to the consolidation of all the government’s powers in administrative agencies.
James Landis, a leading adviser to Franklin Roosevelt, wrote that the administrative state has arisen due to “the inadequacy of a simple tripartite form of government to deal with modern problems.” “Without too much political theory but with a keen sense of the practicalities of the situation,” he explained, administrative agencies have been created “whose functions embraced the three aspects of government. Rulemaking, enforcement, and the disposition of competing claims [adjudication] were all in trusted to them.”
In 1914, influential Progressive author Herbert Croly similarly described what “has been called a fourth department of the government.” This department “does not fit into the traditional classification of governmental powers. It exercises an authority, which is in part executive, in part legislative, and in part judicial…. It is simply a convenient means of consolidating the divided activities of the government for certain practical social purposes.”
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