The Revolt Against the Administrative State

P-Mac reflects as Walker swings for the fences with the "no mas" rules rule.

What we've got is the administrative state. It is, literally, bureaucracy out of control, the progressive-era dream of rule-making administrators insulated from control by politicians. That means insulated from voters, too. The idea was that if administrators were wise, disinterested and scientific enough, they'd need neither checks nor balances. Those would only get in the way of the constant adjusting, via new regulations, that the state would use to perfect us.

Walker may be looking to an older model: the constitutional state. The presumption there is that rules are stable and fewer, giving form to comprehensible principles rather than governing us in minute detail.

That's the nut of it. The involvement of the (generic) State has grown so much that it is possible for the State to grind down or simply halt almost anything. Don't believe it? Think for a moment of how many ways you can be stopped on the road for an offense--right down to 'failure to use headlights in a rainstorm.'

And P-Mac also understands that the administrative-rules game is played, very well indeed, by the "special interests." Makes no difference if they are 'union' or 'management' special interests--ask any honest MPS teacher about how many rules and regs they have to comport with, and how they change from year to year.

Indeed, the Revolution is at hand. Long live the Governor!