Trends in centralized control of the executive branch

One purpose of this essay is to review the major federal regulatory accomplishments and shortfalls in the area of health and safety and to assess where we are headed in order to suggest desirable directions for regulatory reform. The thesis of this paper is that the most persistent, conspicuous, and pervasive effect on regulation today has been centralization, which broadly denotes the expansion of federal executive responsibilities, primarily at the presidential level, and extensive governmental rules. The author posits that this trend has moved through three notable stages. First, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a paradigm for centralization within the executive branch of the federal government to enlarge the position of the national government in regulating American life as he confronted broadened domestic and foreign responsibilities. Second, there was a long span from Truman's stewardship to that of Carter, characterized by ensconcement of, and accretions to, FDR's model and by an acceptance of the vastly augmented role of the federal government in American society. Third, President Reagan carried centralization to its furthest point yet, structurally and managerially, but for a different ultimate purpose: a reversal of a nearly half-century tradition--a deregulation of the federal government's position in American's economic life while increasing it in the areas of national defense, internal security, and personal morality. In the conclusion the writer contends that the precedent of Mr. Reagan's centralizing efforts will weigh heavily on his successors as they seek either to perpetuate his priorities or to magnify the national government in a fourth stage.