American Czars

It may be considered a strange case of “Back to the Future,” halfway around the world. Twenty years after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the apparent demise of Soviet communism, the United States appears to be emulating pre-Bolshevik Russia. Without knowing exactly how or why, America has become the land of the “czars,” men and women appointed by some undefined process, often of dubious legality, literally to rule over various segments and activities of our political, social, and economic life. America has a Science Czar, a School Safety Czar, a Car Czar, and even a Czars Czar.

It didn’t start with President Barack Obama, but the tendency to appoint unelected officials, in many cases unconfirmed by any legislative process, to high-level positions of authority over the political and economic life of the nation has greatly accelerated in the past year, owing in part to the fact that the United States has taken over corporations in the financial and automotive sector that had previously been governed primarily by a private-sector free market. Thus we have an Automotive Recovery Czar, a Compensation Czar, and others.

Some members of Congress, belatedly jealous of their political turf, have been grumbling about the number of new offices that the President has created without Senate approval. Congress, of course, has control over appropriations, and running all of these new offices costs something — though many czars have been appointed with salaries undisclosed. Those who remember our Republic’s founding documents, those parchments preserved under glass in our nation’s capital, may recall one of the charges leveled against the British King in our Declaration of Independence: “He has erected a Multitude of new Offices and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People and eat out their Substance.”


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