[Editor’s Note: This week, a new ruling from the US Supreme court chipped away at the administrative powers of the federal bureaucracy. The case, Loper Bright Ent. vs. Raimondo, largely overturned the 1984 Chevron ruling which had solidified the bureaucracy’s power to interpret laws for itself. That is, rather than require the bureaucracy to seek rulings from federal judges on the interpretation of laws, the US Supreme court in Chevron ruled that federal bureaucrats can decide for themselves how Congress’s laws should be interpreted. Obviously, that created vast new powers for the bureaucracy and also erased the line between the executive branch and the judicial branch. That is, if an administrative agency can interpret laws for itself, then it has taken on the powers allegedly reserved to

[The following is a condensation of Garet Garrett’s pamphlet The Rise of Empire, published in 1952, and included in his collection The People’s Pottage (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1953).]We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire. If you ask when, the answer is that you cannot make a single stroke between day and night; the precise moment does not matter. There was no painted sign to say: “You now are entering Imperium.” Yet it was a very old road and the voice of history was saying: “Whether you know it or not, the act of crossing may be irreversible.”That a Republic may vanish is an elementary schoolbook fact.The Roman Republic passed into the Roman Empire, and yet never could a Roman citizen have said, “That was yesterday.” Nor is the historian, with all the

In the minutes of the Chicago City Council, May 12th last, is the perfect example of how commonly we regard public credit. From bad taxation, reckless borrowing and reckless spending, the city of Chicago had so far prejudiced its own credit that for months it had been unable to meet its municipal payrolls either out of revenues or by discounting its notes at the bank.