By Greg Walcher | Guest Commentary, GregWalcher.com
Police have an unflattering nickname, “Permit Patty,” for someone who calls police over frivolous complaints. It originated when a woman called the police on a little girl selling lemonade at a streetside stand – as generations of kids have done – without a permit. It illustrates a commonsense truth, namely that not everything in life should require a permit, and not every infraction is a matter for the police.
Most of us instinctively understand that, but the federal government never has. Virtually all government agencies operate from a top-down, command-and-control model that emphasizes enforcement over incentives. And most of them have a law enforcement division to make sure everyone complies with their edicts and rules. The federal government has more police than New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles combined. In fact, there are twice as many law enforcement officers in federal agencies than in America’s 25 largest cities combined – more than 200,000 federal cops.
When President Trump announced that he was deploying active-duty troops to the southern border, not everyone applauded. He has sent 1500 new troops to join 2500 national guard and reservists already there, along with a few units sent by various states. Predictably, there was criticism of using the military to enforce laws inside the country – as if that hasn’t been done before. That debate is a sideshow, as a strong majority of Americans clearly understand the need to act on border security.
The more interesting discussion began at Trump’s first rally after taking office, in which he toyed with the idea of sending thousands of newly hired IRS agents to the border. The “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022 authorized 88,000 new IRS agents, and it is unclear how many have already been hired, but Trump’s suggestion started a fascinating look into other law enforcement capability the government already has. The magnitude of that capability is mind boggling.
I wrote about this several years ago, mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Both agencies have military equipment, weapons, SWAT teams, drones, and highly trained “Special Agents.” As it turns out, so do the BLM, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and 76 other federal agencies, more than 50 of which are not law enforcement agencies. That’s 200,000 federal cops – Level One certified peace officers with guns, badges, and arresting authority. That is more than the total number of U.S. Marines (174,000). The National Institutes of Health in suburban Bethesda, Maryland has its own fleet of police cars with cops who write parking tickets – and carry guns and can arrest people. So does the Department of Agriculture. And the Department of Education. And the Government Printing Office.
We all understand an agency like EPA, for example, is tasked with enforcing environmental laws. But does it really need a full-blown military-style police force? These agencies, of course, downplay the severity of this approach. EPA has explained that it “enforces the nation’s laws by investigating cases, collecting evidence, conducting forensic analyses, and providing legal guidance to assist in the prosecution of criminal conduct that threatens people’s health and the environment.” Well yes, but also by midnight raids with SWAT teams and attack dogs, confiscating private property, hauling people off to jail for accidentally spilling a barrel of oil, and other “enforcement” horrors.
I have often thought that if a federal official sees someone committing a crime, something that truly threatens the public safety, they should do what any of us would do – call the police. Every county in America has a sheriff with a gun, badge, and arresting authority. They are elected and given extraordinary law enforcement power by the consent of the public, even the power to take lives when necessary. EPA is not better at it; federal officials just love to assert their “primacy” over the local yokels.
Some of this massive budgetary largess ($28.6 billion – the average federal worker costs $143,000 including benefits) is just plain unnecessary. Some of it, too, is worse than that – it is a threat to individual liberty, in the hands of people who were never elected and who do not derive this extraordinary power “from the consent of the governed.”
The rule of law is among America’s most important founding principles. But militarizing almost every government agency is not necessary to maintain order. Maybe at least some of those cops could more effectively be deployed where there is a real threat to public safety, perhaps at the border, lest they become a giant corps of Permit Patty’s.
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