The next bumper sticker: political science

 As usual, Ramaswamy's glib slogans aren't self-explanatory, but I think we can figure out what he's pretending to be thinking about with this one:

There are three branches of the U.S. government, not four.

One would guess that this is a reference to the bullshit concept of the "Deep State." What that actually means is of course the career civil service -- federal employees who don't get replaced wholesale every time the party in power changes, and who have legal protections to make sure that doesn't happen. Sometimes it also includes the military. (Sometimes it's the Deep State that's persecuting Ronald Dump, sometimes it's Joe Biden personally. They want to have it both ways.) Some conservatives also rail against the "Administrative State," which is more or less the same idea but with an emphasis on the regulatory and rulemaking process more than the people who carry it out.

 

So here's the view from a guy with a master's degree in environmental policy and a doctorate in social policy. I know, that makes me less credible than the guy on the next barstool, because I'm an elite who's laughing at you, but really I'm not. I've spent a lot of years reading and studying and yes, doing my own research by which I don't mean reading random nutcases on the Internet but actually collecting data from the real world and analyzing it. (This was mostly paid for by grants from the Deep State, in the interest of full disclosure.)

The fact is the world is a helluva lot more complicated in 2023 than it was in 1789, and the country is a whole lot bigger. Let's take the case of prescription drug regulation, an entire problem that didn't exist until the advent of science based medicine in the 20th Century. The ancestral agency to the Food and Drug Administration was created by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 2006, shortly after an incident in which a diptheria antitoxin contaminated by tetanus killed 13 children. It prohibited the interstate transport of adulterated food or drugs, including drugs whose standard of strength, quality of purity of the active ingredient was not clearly stated on the label. Authority to enforce it was given to an agency of the Department of Agriculture. The Food and Drug Administration per se was created in 1927.

If you think about it for one nanosecond, you will realize that congress could not pass legislation specifically outlawing every bogus drug that came onto the market. There had to be a group of professionals, with the use of a chemistry lab, who had the authority to enforce the law, just as congress doesn't pass a bill to arrest and prosecute every criminal. We have police and prosecutors and courts. During the 1930s, journalists and advocates found that the FDA's authority was too limited and that many worthless or injurious products were allowed on the market. Congress finally acted in 1938 after a tragedy in which a contaminated sulfanilimide product killed over 100 people, and by passing the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act which is the original basis of the current FDA. This required a pre-market review of new drugs, and banned false therapeutic claims. 

It's a good thing too, because in the early 1960s it was discovered that a drug widely marketed in Europe for morning sickness of pregnancy caused devastating birth defects. The U.S. was largely spared because Frances Oldham Kelsey of the FDA refused to approve it due to insufficient evidence of safety. This resulted in amendments to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1962 which strengthened the requirements for new drug approval.

So now we do indeed have a large bureaucracy and a demanding process that drug companies have to go through to get their products approved and to keep that approval. On the other hand, they get to make billions and gazillions of dollars because they get exclusive marketing rights for many years for drugs that do get approved. (The details are complicated but not important here.) People argue about whether the FDA is too slow and cumbersome, to too quick and lax, in general or in one case or another, but the basic conclusion is: 

A) We need a regulatory authority because otherwise people would be dying or getting sick or injured because of useless or dangerous drugs, and wasting billions of dollars on frauds, and

B) Congress cannot possibly do this with any specificity but rather has to appropriate money for an agency that has the technical capability and capacity. (Actually the FDA is partly funded by user fees from applicants but that's another story.)

C) The professionals who carry out this critical responsibility must be shielded from political pressure or retaliation.

That's the Deep State. And it's not a fourth branch of government, it's part of the Executive. 

If you want to read an in-depth analysis of the relationship among congress, the presidency and the FDA, you can read this from Kate Cook of Harvard Law School. Congress, and the president, do have important powers over the FDA, while at the same time it retains independence and agency within the parameters set for it. Exactly how these relationships should be structured, and how essential regulatory powers should be exercised within the context of a democratic republic, is obviously subject to debate. But the existence of such agencies is essential to public health and safety and the functioning of modern society.