Agency Oversight Quotes
While this may have been true in some European nations, many disagree completely with this assertion for America. They point to the thousands of laws passed by Congress to cut back or diminish the power that they had earlier given the agency. These counter-examples to Hayek’s view are particularly evident after most wars. What often does happen is that Congress votes a temporary power to a government agency, and when the temporary power time is coming to an end, many citizens and officials are so happy with the result of granting the power, that the power is then granted permanently, sometimes to the distress of some legislators who voted for the power with the understanding that it would be temporary. However, Congress may, and often does, change its collective mind. Coercion to Hayek includes for example, taxation if there are criminal penalties for failure to pay the tax or regulation where a government agency may require or prohibit certain behavior of a business or individual and most people would agree that even in a democracy there are coercive aspects of much government activity.
There are many factors that tend to make it very hard for Cabinit Secrretaries and other Presidencial appointments to control their agencies. They include inertia, the huge size of many agencies, existing laws, bureaucracies, and the techncial complexity of the work of the agency. Like a huge aircraft carrier, when they can make a change it takes a while for the change to occur and be noticable--typically more time than the average cabinet member is in office. This is much like CEOs of very large corporations.
