Rebuilding the Iron Triangles Again

                                                                       Jerry Fox

A Washington inside-the-beltway term, an iron triangle is created when the advocates of a government program (read beneficiaries), the agency or department assigned responsibility to carry out the program, and the committee chairs in the Congress responsible for oversight of the program forge a friendly alliance.  The intent is to preserve, protect, and grow the program - this helps the advocates receive even greater benefits, helps the agency increase its staff and budget, and helps the committee chairs expand their influence. 

As the years from program inception go by, the triangle increases in strength.  If the same committee chairs stay in  position for a long time, the triangles get even stronger.  That is why when Presidents take office vowing to reduce the size and scope of government - they are seldom successful.  John Kennedy tried it.  Ronald Reagan tried it.  Others talk about it.  None have been able to do it very well.

Understanding the principle of the iron triangle also helps to understand that it is not reducing the number of federal employees that reduces government.  Government programs once in the law books have to be “faithfully executed” by the Chief Executive - so says the United States Constitution, and so says the President’s oath of office, and so says the oath of office of every federal civil servant.  A great big reduction of 200,000 federal employees (its really only a small percent of the total federal workforce) sounds good to the voters.  It means very little about reducing the size and scope of government.

First you have a law, then you have a raft of federal programs to execute the many different provisions of that law, then you have a mountain of regulations to execute those programs. Wouldn’t it be neat if the Congress would devote itself to a program-by-program review, looking at the reason each program was created  and the time in which it was created, looking realistically at the success of the program in serving its original purpose, looking at whether the original reason for a program’s  creation is still present, looking at the relevance of the program in the context of today’s world and national situation, and looking at the lifetime cost of the program against its measurable degree of success.  It is only by rigorously examining the individual federal programs that those which have failed, or have succeeded but served their purpose, can be finally laid to rest.  And even for those programs that must continue, maybe we could at least hope for streamlined delivery and a reduction in the regulatory burden.

Once again, after the election of 2006,  there is a small window of opportunity to try and deal with this issue.  The Congress turned over in 1994, and all the committee chairs were new.  All of the iron triangles were broken – and then rebuilt over the past 12 years.  Now the Congress has turned over again, and we have new Committee Chairs in January. 

Encouraging our elected representatives to take a carefully planned and executed approach to reviewing over two centuries of federal law - and implementing regulation - is something that can only help the country.   Encouraging the same among our representatives to state government can only be good for the state.  As time passes, and the new committee chairs become entrenched, the iron triangles will begin to grow stronger again.  Who knows how long it will be until another short window of opportunity presents itself..