Word: congress
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Many functions of government have been taken over by a "Fourth Branch," the swollen federal bureaucracy, over which Congress has only remote and tenuous control...
...Congress has even lost much of its old control of the national purse, historically the basic and decisive power of Parliaments. In 1957's Battle of the Budget, Congress huffed and puffed about cutting, but when the din died away, the President's budget was only nicked and scratched...
WHAT brought about Congress' decline? The underlying factor, says Burnham, has been the 20th century trend toward what he calls "de mocratism"-democracy carried to the extreme of insisting that the national government must directly represent the majority will. And ultimately, democratism leads to "Caesarism," with a national election amounting to little more than a nationwide plebiscite giving a leader (Napoleon, Hitler) an "unrestricted proxy...
...democratist tone was already audible in President-to-be Woodrow Wilson's pronouncement, back in 1908, that the U.S. "craves a single leader." Democratism's big thrust came in the early years of the New Deal, with Franklin Roosevelt pushing batches of White House bills through Congress and even challenging the Supreme Court in his notorious (but illfated) court-packing plan...
...onward with his seizure of the steel mills in April 1952. President Truman, Burnham notes, never cited any specific law for the seizure, claimed only-with precise democratist logic-that the President "represents the interest of all the people," and must "use his powers to safeguard the nation" when Congress fails to act (an argument rejected by the Supreme Court). The explanation reminds Burnham of the doctrine of Salus populi suprema lex esto (The people's welfare is the highest law), an excuse for tyranny under the Roman Caesars...