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See, my view is that the government is given way too many things to do. What we need to do differently is cut the number of things the govt does, so that when it does something, it's doing something it has been proven it can do well (or that it's pretty near impossible for anyone else to do, like defend the country), and the decisions about policy get made by Congress.
The agencies are a way for Congress to punt on the hard decisions by giving them to people who aren't accountable. They do the same thing with the courts, by the way. And if you have ever had to deal with an agency...... oy.
I'm not deluding myself that this is achievable, but I do think we need to give some of these structural issues some deep thought. Much of the regulatory apparatus is self-perpetuating and running on inertia plus the power of entrenched interests. (For example, ask yourself why we still have a Rural Electrification Administration. The answer is that the small publicly owned utilities out west like it and lobby for it, even though pretty much the whole country is wired for power now.) My view on these things is, if you wouldn't set it up this way today, you shouldn't maintain it simply because it's there.
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