#4 Governmental agencies operate at the dictate of the Executive Branch – Myth.
Information for this topic was gleaned from American Politics: ©Marc A. Triebwasser

Fact: Most government agencies were created out of the growth of federal programs instituted by Congress in the twentieth century. This has resulted in a broad delegation of authority being given to the Executive Branch as these federal programs are administered by agencies within the Executive Branch. Congress has helped create a vast and bloated Federal Bureaucracy that operates inefficiently with duplication across agencies.

However, Congress in 1946 began to develop and put in place a series of structures and procedures designed to oversee the Bureaucracy. This process is known as “congressional oversight”. The methods through which this process takes place are: the committee process, congressional administrative offices, casework, as well as a number of administrative techniques. So Congress does have the responsibility to reign in the run-away bureaucracy and they have the means to do it.

Committee Oversight: There are three committee groups created to provide some controls. The first group is the Authorization Committees. This type of committee is the powerful committee which originally establishes or authorizes the program or agency. It all starts in this type of committee. Examples of this would be the Armed Services Committees in both chambers (house and senate); for urban programs it would be the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in the House with a matching committee in the Senate.

Unforeseen problems have arisen in this process, the main one being that many programs fall under multiple committees or subcommittees; this provides the agency flexibility to seek authorization from whichever subcommittee is more favorable for a desired outcome. Another problem occurs when a committee establishes a program – they can become too invested in the outcome to adequately investigate the operations of the program it has initiated.

Appropriations Committees provide the most significant controls for programs. The budget for an agency must be approved each year, and they always ask for more. This is a logical time to thoroughly inspect the budgets of all the various agencies to see where waste is occurring; sadly this does not happen because the federal budget is so large and complex that most budgets are routinely approved. Unfortunately, general reviews only occur periodically. Another problematic issue is the close relationships agencies develop with the subcommittees of the Appropriations Committees that specifically deals with their agency. These relationships can cause special favor to be given from their subcommittee.

The third committee group involved in the “oversight” process is the Government Operations Committees. This group is comprised of two independent committees, the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Governmental Reform. Both were established to coordinate congressional concern over governmental operations. This would be an excellent place for actual congressional surveillance of the activities of the vast Bureaucracy within the Executive Branch. Again, however, because of jurisdictional disputes and because of the reluctance of most representatives and senators to provide adequate oversight, the efforts of these two committees have been extremely limited.

Bottom line: The committee oversight method is not working. Congress has the authority and the responsibility but, due to the heavy duties and schedules of elected representatives and senators, it is almost physically impossible to have the time to deal with the details of all the government agencies.

Next week we will continue with the other forms of oversight that are available to the Congress.

Dinner Table Discussion Question: Discuss what solutions would need to be put into place in order for the Committee oversight process to accomplish what they were originally designed to accomplish.