Return of the Czars:The Rapid Influx of Unelected Bureaucrats in the Obama Administration

Barack Obama ran for president on a campaign platform which advocated greater government transparency, energy independence, and the strengthening of social institutions such as public schools. Obama, however, never asserted that his presidential administration would be in the business of directing private enterprise such as automotive manufacturers or would attempt to construct massive centralized  government bureaucracies of unelected officials that have no democratic accountability to the American people. These unelected bureaucrats, commonly called "Czars" are appointed by the president and are accountable only to the president. The fact that Obama has appointed twenty such individuals to administer the will of the executive  branch not only provides creditable evidence that the administration is attempting an expansive power grab, but has left many wondering how serious the president actually was about honoring the campaign promise he made about pursuing greater government transparency.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1151090198&play=1

There are many opponents of the so-called Obama Czars who believe such actions by the president are not only antithetical to the political platform that he ran upon, but also represent fundamentally anti-democratic principles that are unconstitutional. While many supporters of the new administration might believe that such criticism would come  from the Republican minority in the House and Senate, the most vocal opposition has actually came from a senior member of the Democratic Party. According the Ken Klukowski, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, the president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, has called the president's actions unconstitutional and a serious threat to the systems of checks and balances enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Klukowski states, "Senator Byrd is exactly correct. The Constitution commands that government officers with significant authority (called “principal officers”) are nominated by the president but then are subject to a confirmation vote by the U.S. Senate. And principal officers include not only cabinet-level department heads, but go five levels deep in executive appointments, to include assistant secretaries and deputy undersecretaries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EswO4DAeIig

Inferior officers are appointed either by the president, cabinet-level officers, or the courts. But even then, the Constitution specifies that only Congress can authorize the making of such appointments. For these inferior officers, only Congress can create their offices, and also specify who appoints them. And such officers are still answerable to Congress. They are subject to subpoena to testify before Congress, and Congress holds the power of the purse by making annual appropriations for their division or program."

Many of you may still be wondering, just what exactly a Czar is, and why should I be concerned about why the president has recently appointed an unprecedented amount of them? Originally, the title of "Czar" was derived from "Caesar" which meant Emperor in Latin. The European medieval sense of the term, that is, a ruler who claims the same rank as a Roman emperor, with the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official such as the Pope or an Ecumenical Patriarch. In short a Czar is someone who exerts near autocratic control over the populace he or she governs, since the word Czar is inseparably linked with autocracy it also implies exemption from public accountability.

Creating a massive bureaucracy of unelected officials that are appointed and accountable only to the president is certainly a crafty way to avoid campaign promises of greater government transparency, and it is an equally crafty way of denying a failure in governance if a future catastrophic event were to happen to certain sectors of the economy or another area under the control of a czar. Furthermore, the appointment of Czars in various positions allows for more centralized planning and a greater degree of control of society by the executive branch of government. It constitutes a power grab and an ambitious path toward centralized planning that has so infuriated Senate Democrats such as Senator Byrd who have been prompted to write the president a letter criticizing his policies.

Energy czar Carol Browner

Urban czar Adolfo Carrion, Jr.

Infotech czar Vivek Kundra

Faith-based czar Joshua DuBois

Health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle

New TARP czar Herb Allison

Stimulus accountability czar Earl Devaney

Non-proliferation czar Gary Samore

Terrorism (I thought they didn't use that word) czar John Brennan

Regulatory czar Cass Sunstein

Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske

Guantanamo closure czar Daniel Fried.

NOTE- List from http://open.salon.com/blog/djohn/2009/06/05/obamas_czars