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→National Recovery Act: Richberg
The NRA Act provided an appropriation of $3,300,000,000 which the President was given to be spent at his own discretion. He had a sum of money equal to what the government spent in the prvious ten years outside of discretionary spending. Roosevelt decided how it should be spent and where. If a congressman or senator needed an appropriation for his district, instead of introducing a bill in Congress, he went to Roosevelt to ask for it. All over the country, states, cities, counties, business organizations, institutions of all sorts wanted projects of all kinds. Instead of going to Congress they went to the President.
The NRA Act provided an appropriation of $3,300,000,000 which the President was given to be spent at his own discretion. He had a sum of money equal to what the government spent in the prvious ten years outside of discretionary spending. Roosevelt decided how it should be spent and where. If a congressman or senator needed an appropriation for his district, instead of introducing a bill in Congress, he went to Roosevelt to ask for it. All over the country, states, cities, counties, business organizations, institutions of all sorts wanted projects of all kinds. Instead of going to Congress they went to the President.
Donald Richberg, former Counsel and later Administrator of NRA admitted candidly, "Yet step by step through the diabolical logic of events the NRA became the apparent exponent and protector of 'price fixing' - that hateful objective of that most hated ogre, a big business monopoly."<ref>Donald R. Richberg, ''The Rainbow'', Garden City : Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1936, pg. 31.</ref>
This blank check legislation led to the subservience of Congress and the rise of bureaucracy. Under the Constitution, Congress alone can write laws. The executive branch only enforces the law. But Congress now began to pass laws that created large bureaus empowered to make [[regulation]]s or directives with a wide range of authority. Under these laws the executive bureau became a quasi-legislative body authorized by Congress to make regulations which had the effect of law. This practice grew until Washington was filled with a [[New Deal agencies|vast array of bureaus]] that were making laws, enforcing them and actually interpreting them through [[administrative law court]]s set up within the bureaus, abolishing on a large scale the [[separation of powers]] between executive, legislative and judicial processes.
This blank check legislation led to the subservience of Congress and the rise of bureaucracy. Under the Constitution, Congress alone can write laws. The executive branch only enforces the law. But Congress now began to pass laws that created large bureaus empowered to make [[regulation]]s or directives with a wide range of authority. Under these laws the executive bureau became a quasi-legislative body authorized by Congress to make regulations which had the effect of law. This practice grew until Washington was filled with a [[New Deal agencies|vast array of bureaus]] that were making laws, enforcing them and actually interpreting them through [[administrative law court]]s set up within the bureaus, abolishing on a large scale the [[separation of powers]] between executive, legislative and judicial processes.