But conservatives say the federal bureaucratic state has become so huge that it’s now a de facto fourth, and perhaps the most powerful, branch of government.
Richard Kelsey, assistant dean of George Mason Law School, says the Founding Fathers were clear and deliberate about what they’d allow constitutionally.
“They took a lot of time trying to figure out how to get this right. Remember, they had the Articles of Confederation first — didn’t work. So we got together, had a constitutional convention, and we spent a lot of time trying to figure out, ‘How do we make this delicate balance of power?'” Kelsey told CBN News.
The Founders decided only the politicians in Congress, those closest to and most easily held accountable by the voters, could make the laws that would rein over, and even threaten, those voters.
“They’re supposed to make the laws, propose the laws, be answerable to the people, and the president is not a lawmaker,” Kelsey said. “His job is to either say ‘no to this law’ or ‘yes to this law.’
But the unceasing, cancerous growth of the executive branch’s bureaucratic agencies has upset this careful balance and made unelected bureaucrats super-powerful.
“They’re like a fourth branch of government now, and they are unaccountable,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told CBN News.
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