Growth of Government

Established: September 2, 1789

Mission: To manage the national debt accumulated to fund the war for independence.

Reason for creation: Treasury grew out of early efforts to ensure proper and efficient handling of the national debt in the face of weak economic and political ties between the colonies. Several efforts from 1775 through the 1780s were launched by the Continental Congress first, to establish the colonies as a sovereign nation able to secure domestic and foreign loans, and second, to develop an organization capable of administering the nation’s finances and bringing the debt under control. By the time that the new Constitution was signed in 1787, many colonial leaders had been persuaded that, whatever misgivings there were about giving the federal government too much control, some centralization of authority was needed in order for the new nation to survive. Establishing a Department of Treasury was one of the earliest acts of the first Congress of the United States.

Impacts: Under the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, Treasury assumed the states’ war debts and committed to a dollar-for-dollar repayment of the $75 million total. In taking these actions, Hamilton restored public confidence in the nation’s economy. His further activities stimulated investment in the Bank of the United States, which served as the federal government’s fiscal agent.

The Treasury Department became the de facto agency overseeing many of the new functions taken on by the federal government. Eventually, these services were spun off to create new agencies: the Postal Service in 1829, the Department of the Interior in 1849, and the Department of Commerce in 1903. Even the Coast Guard, the nation’s original navy, operated under the jurisdiction of the Treasury until 1967.

Today, the Treasury Department continues to manage the debt. It also collects taxes (through the Internal Revenue Service), prints and manages the currency, investigates and prosecutes financial crimes, supports expansion of credit in low income communities, and enforces laws relating to alcohol and tobacco.

Established: May 15, 1862

Mission: To support agricultural growth and development as a central element of the nation’s economy.

Reason for creation: The roots of the USDA date back to 1839 with the establishment of the Agricultural Division of the U.S. Patent Office. The division’s formation was in large part a response to widespread agricultural problems brought about by standard farming practices. Note that through much of the nation’s early history, the health of the American economy was directly tied to the productivity, development, and profitability of the country’s agriculture. In 1820, for example, 72% of American workers labored on farms and over 75% of American exports were agricultural products.

By the late 1830s, large swaths of American farmland had been left unsuitable for growing crops and both farmers and government officials recognized the need to investigate and solve the problem. The Patent Office’s Agricultural Division began researching and producing seeds that were more resilient and easier to grow in harsh conditions—natural or anthropogenic. By the 1860s, the division was producing over 2.4 million seed packages. In 1862, the government established the United States Department of Agriculture.

Initially, the USDA was not a Cabinet level department. Farmers’ interest groups lobbied for decades for Cabinet representation, particularly as new industries gained political influence. Finally in 1889, after a failed attempt to create a Department of Agriculture and Labor to satisfy both organized labor and farmers, the Department of Agriculture was granted Cabinet status.

Impacts: The USDA has frequently adapted to and helped shape changes in the economy, agricultural practices, and human welfare. Its constituency was decentralized and scattered on farms across the country; reaching them with new research into agricultural science and best practices was a significant challenge. The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 established a cooperative program between the USDA and land-grant universities to educate people across the country on agriculture-related topics. This program contributed greatly to the development and implementations of agricultural innovations. During periods of difficulty for farmers, from the Great Depression to the 2019 trade war with China, the USDA has provided essential resources to struggling farmers allowing them to stay solvent.

Learn more

USDA: About the USDA
AllGov: USDA Profile
USPTO: Putting Down Roots at the Patent Office
NCSU: Smith-Lever Act

Established: February 4, 1887

Mission: To enforce the Interstate Commerce Act, a law that prohibited unfair and monopolistic practices of the railroad (and later, trucking) companies.

Reason for creation: As they spread westward in the mid-1800s, railroads often acquired monopolistic power that led to abusive market practices, including discrimination, collusion, and rate shifting that hurt farmers in the west and businessmen in the east. Because so many of the growing western settlements relied on railroads for necessary goods, the settlers had little consumer power to pressure railroad corporations for reasonable rates. State laws passed in the 1870s proved ineffective, leading both farmers and businessmen to lobby the federal government for help. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) became the first regulatory agency in the US and was a model for those that came later.

Impacts: Immediately after its creation, the ICC was tasked with enforcing badly needed railroad safety standards. In the late 1800s, hundreds of railroad workers were dying each year – only coal mining had a higher work-related death toll. In 1893, one in 28 railroad workers would be injured on the job and one in 320 would be killed. The Safety Appliances Acts of 1893, 1903, and 1910 all required railroads to improve railroad safety through the use of power brakes, handholds, automatic couplers, and other safety equipment. All three of these acts relied on the ICC for enforcing their requirements.

While safety standards were crucial to reducing the number of accidents, the ICC’s regulatory authority over railroad ratemaking was its most powerful and contentious aspect. The major railroads challenged the ICC’s ratemaking authority in court. Many of these cases, such as the 1897 Supreme Court Case Interstate Commerce Commission v. Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway Co., significantly limited the ICC’s ability to meaningfully regulate the railroad companies. In response to these court decisions, Congress began passing laws that clarified and refined the role of the ICC so that it could better achieve its intended goals:

• Hepburn Act of 1906: Enacted in response to repeated rate hikes by the railroads and the activity of other modes of transportation commerce. The Hepburn Act expanded the ICC’s power in two main ways: first, it allowed the ICC to set maximum rates for railroads. Second, as other forms of interstate transportation and commerce became increasingly important, the Hepburn Act extended the ICC’s jurisdiction to include bridges, terminals, ferries, railroad sleeping cars, express companies and oil pipelines.
• Motor Carrier Act of 1935: Extended the ICC’s jurisdiction to include interstate buses and trucking.

As a “small government” perspective took root during the 1970s and 1980s, Congress began to pass several deregulatory laws that rolled back the authority of the ICC. Ultimately, Congress passed the ICC Termination Act of 1995 which abolished the ICC as most of its duties had either been eliminated or delegated to other agencies.

Established: July 2, 1890

Mission: To prohibit anti-competitive or monopolistic conduct by individuals or corporations.

Reason for creation: During the second half of the 19th century, large corporations such as Standard Oil were consolidating power and gaining monopolistic control over their respective markets through both horizontal and vertical integration. Consumers, who were being forced to pay artificially high prices for basic necessities, and other corporations, who were being shut out of competition by the monopolies, called for government intervention to prevent this consolidation. While several states had previously instituted laws with similar purposes to the Sherman Antitrust Act, they were limited by their inability to regulate corporate conduct across state borders. Thus, a federal act was better equipped to address those issues.

Impact: The Sherman Antitrust Act represented a significant shift in public attitudes towards business—especially big business—and the federal role in regulating business practices. The act was the first in a series of federal efforts to rein in monopolistic conduct and preserve competitiveness in markets. The Sherman Antitrust Act’s implementation eventually led to the creation of the Federal Trade Commission in 1914.

Established: February 3, 1913

Mission: To give Congress the authority to levy and collect taxes on individuals’ income as a means to fund the expanding role of the federal government.

Reason for creation: By the late 19th century, the expanding role of the federal government required a new and stable source of revenue. Congress had previously used an explicitly temporary income tax (Revenue Act of 1861) to pay for the Civil War, but its effort to implement a permanent income tax in 1894 (Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act) was struck down by the Supreme Court a year later (Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust Co.). The Court’s decision led to the 1909 passage of the 16th Amendment by a two-thirds majority, as is required to amend the Constitution. The16th Amendment then became a part of the Constitution in 1913 after 75% of states (38 of the then-48 states) in the Union ratified it.

Impacts: Since the ratification of the 16th Amendment, the income tax rate has varied widely, especially for the highest income bracket. During both World Wars, the top marginal income tax rate rose significantly (77% during WWI and 94% during WWII). After WWII, the top marginal tax rates remained above 70% until the 1980s when it fell to a low of 28% in 1988. It has remained below 40% ever since. Top marginal tax rates have substantially influenced levels of wealth and income inequality [link to brief]. When taxes on the richest Americans are high, inequality has tended to be low–and vice versa. Reductions in the income tax since 1980, combined with a reluctance to cut government services, have also produced steady, and sometimes rapid, increases in the national debt.

Over time, the income tax has made possible many ambitious and valuable government programs. From Medicaid and Medicare, to national defense, to education, to environmental protection, the income tax is a primary tool for funding some of the federal government’s most important work.

Established: March 4, 1913

Mission: To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.

Reason for creation: The Department of Labor (DOL) was created in response to corporate dominance of labor markets that kept wages low amid dangerous working conditions and to the corresponding political influence that large corporations had accumulated by the turn of the 20th century.

Desiring better working conditions and feeling that corporate influence inherently threatened the rights and representation of workers, the American labor movement repeatedly called for the voice of organized labor to be represented in the President’s executive Cabinet. While Congress established the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1884 and a Department of Labor in 1888, neither of these agencies were granted executive rank. In 1903, the cabinet-level Department of Commerce and Labor was formed by President Theodore Roosevelt to rein in the excesses of large corporations, but still there was no executive agency specifically dedicated to American laborers. Finally, in 1913, the Department of Commerce and Labor was renamed the Department of Commerce and its labor-related agencies were transferred to a new executive department: the Department of Labor.

Impacts: When first established, DOL included four bureaus from the previous Department of Commerce and Labor:

• Bureau of Labor Statistics (collectted and reported on economic and social statistics related to working people)
• Bureau of Naturalization (administered laws providing for the naturalization of immigrants via the courts)
• Bureau of Immigration (administered laws relating to immigrants)
• The Children’s Bureau (child health and welfare)

It also assumed a role in facilitating mediation of labor disputes.

More than 80% of the department’s employees served in the Bureau of Immigration, but many soon took on different responsibilities related to unemployment issues. Immigration offices throughout the country began to be used as employment offices, finding jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers and playing an important in the war effort during WWI.

In 1916, passage of the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act established workers’ compensation benefits for federal employees and eventually led to the establishment of the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) which covers both public and privately-employed workers. The OWCP’s mission is to “protect the interests of workers who are injured or become ill on the job, their families, and their employers by making timely, appropriate, and accurate decisions on claims, providing prompt payment of benefits and helping injured workers return to gainful work as early as is feasible”.

The creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971 extended DOL’s responsibilities to assure safe and healthy conditions for workers by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. OSHA’s establishment consolidated several decades of legislative and executive efforts aimed at preventing workplace accidents, injuries, and deaths.

More recently, the DOL dramatically decreased veteran unemployment levels over the last decade. Largely thanks to work by the DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, the unemployment rate among veterans fell from 9.9% in 2011 to 3.4% in 2016—lower than the national average.

Established: December 23, 1913

Mission: To centralize control of the United States monetary system in order to promote economic safety and stability.

Reason for creation: Repeated and dramatic economic panics in the preceding decades led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) in 1913. It was designed to be a central authority equipped to manage and stabilize the national economy.

From 1863 until the Fed’s creation, a loose system of national banks managed the United States’ monetary policy. However, the United States experienced economic panics in 1873, 1884, 1893, and 1907 —occurrences often characterized by disruptions in economic stability on both national and international scales. During the Panic of 1907, J.P. Morgan, the powerful financier and banker, rallied bankers and other wealthy Americans to loan money to specific failing banks in order to keep them solvent. While his actions probably helped prevent the total collapse of the stock market, they also made evident to the general public the need for an independent and reliable organization to support greater economic stability. In the aftermath of the 1907 panic, the National Monetary Commission was established to investigate the crisis and to suggest legislation that would help avoid further catastrophes. Following the commission’s 1911 report, legislators debated for two years before finally passing the Federal Reserve Act which established the Federal Reserve.

Impacts: Since it was established, the Fed has guided American monetary policy through extensive economic changes and massive disturbances. Events like the two World Wars, the Great Depression, the September 11th attacks, and the 2008 Great Recession all required stabilization efforts by the central bank. In the 1920s the Fed recognized the gold standard’s waning importance in American economic affairs and initiated a shift towards using open market operations as a primary tool for conducting monetary policy. This has allowed the Fed to directly control the amount of money circulating in the economy. This increased control has made it easier to manage inflation and deflation which, under the gold standard, were often caused by shifts in gold extraction.

Established: September 26, 1914

Mission: To protect consumers and the marketplace from anti-competitive business practices.

Reason for creation: The public’s steady demand for protection from the anti-competitive practices of a few large companies in several prominent industries culminated with the creation of the FTC. Despite passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, anti-competitive activities persisted, including monopolistic mergers, price-fixing, bid rigging, and false and deceptive advertising. The FTC replaced the Bureau of Corporations, which was established in 1903 and served to institutionalize the nation’s antitrust activities for the first time. Initially, the FTC’s core responsibility was enforcing the aforementioned antitrust laws that were already in effect. This work primarily involved breaking up monopolies, preventing their formation, and suing monopolistic violators.

Impacts: In the century since the FTC was established, the economy has become much more complex and more forms of commerce and anti-competitive practices have emerged. In response, the FTC has taken on additional roles to address these issues. However, its original responsibilities remain a core part of the FTC’s mission in today’s economy, where large corporations regularly seek to consolidate economic power through mergers. One notable addition to the FTC’s mission is investigative enforcement. Usually in response to an accusation of wrongdoing by a third party, the FTC can investigate complaints and then recommend further action. The FTC also now plays a role in enforcing laws that protect the public from false advertising. And, with the advent of internet commerce, the FTC has taken on some responsibility for enforcing e-commerce regulations relating to such areas as privacy and use of customer data, multi-level marketing, payment protection, and more.

Notably, the FTC took action against Facebook for violations of users’ privacy, fining the company $5 billion penalty, mandating that Facebook adopt a modified corporate structure, and imposing additional restrictions on the corporation. The financial penalty was 20 times larger than any previous fine for consumer privacy violations.

Established: June 30, 1930

Mission: To protect consumers from unsafe drugs, biological products, medical devices, food products, and cosmetics as well as to advance public health through the promotion of beneficial medical innovations and by helping the public access accurate, scientific information about how to maintain and improve health.

Reason for creation: The creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) arose from decades of legislative attempts to prevent the sale and distribution of harmful consumable products. Throughout our history, public hazards have presented themselves in the form of food produced in unsanitary conditions or with harmful additives; substances misleadingly sold as medicine; and ineffective or actively dangerous drugs. The FDA was established in order to regulate the sale and distribution of such products and was far from the first attempt by the federal government to do so.

By the end of the 18th century, the federal government was already setting purity standards on certain foods and, in 1848, the Drug Importation Act represented the beginning of federal regulations on drug imports. These roles were designated to the Chemical Division of the United States Department of Agriculture in 1862. However, the dire need for more intensive regulation of food and drug products was evident by the early 20th century. For example, “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup”, widely used throughout the second half of the 19th century to soothe fussy babies, contained high levels of morphine and alcohol. It is estimated that thousands of babies were killed by the syrup via overdose, addiction, and withdrawal. Until the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, there was no requirement that drug companies list active ingredients on product labels.

In 1906, due to this prevalence of dangerous substances in common medicinal elixirs as well as the growing outrage over shockingly unsanitary food production environments, Congress and President Theodore Roosevelt passed both the Pure Food and Drug Act as well as the Meat Inspection Act. Many point to the Pure Food and Drug Act, which regulated interstate trade of misbranded or altered foods, drinks, and drugs, as the original iteration of the Food and Drug Administration. However it was not until 1927 that the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration was created and, three years later, renamed the Food and Drug Administration.

Impacts: The role of the FDA has grown to include regulating cosmetics and medical devices, the authority to conduct factory inspections, testing drugs on animals and humans, and speeding or skipping the authorization process of experimental drugs for those in need.

Due in large part to efforts by the FDA, virtually all food and drug products sold legally in the United States include information about ingredients, possible side effects, and allergy warnings. The FDA inspects manufacturers and processors of products under its regulation. These inspections occur before a facility is able to start operating, at regular intervals, and when there is reason to believe that entities might be violating FDA protocol.

When the FDA identifies potentially dangerous products that are being sold, it can issue a recall. The FDA regularly updates its website with a list of products currently under recall for various reasons.

Some of the FDA’s most important modern accomplishments have involved restrictions on drug marketing. Throughout its history, the FDA has prevented drug companies from advertising potentially dangerous drugs. One of its most important prevention measures was the 1989 recall of all supplements containing 100 mg or more of L-Tryptophan due to its association with Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome (EMS).

Established: June 6, 1934

Mission: To protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.

Reason for creation: Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to enforce the Securities Act of 1933 and to protect investors. Decades of economic instability and mistrust in financial institutions had come to a head in the years leading up to the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. As capital markets expanded after World War I, many investors were swindled or misled by fraudulent sales or other financial schemes. Of the $50 billion in new securities offered during the 1920s, it is estimated that half of them quickly became worthless. Nevertheless, proposals for federal regulation of the exchanges were not taken seriously until after investment capital dried up in the years after the crash. In addition, public faith in the market was deeply shaken and a consensus grew that something had to be done in order to regain the public’s trust.

During its investigation into the root causes of the financial collapse, Congress determined that major banks and other financial institutions had knowingly misled investors about the value of securities, engaged in irresponsible and risky investment activities, and favored certain financial insiders over average stock traders. Based on these findings, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933, which prohibited deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities, and required that investors receive extensive information regarding the businesses they wanted to invest in. Also in 1933, Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act requiring the separation of investment banking from commercial banking. The following year, Congress passed the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which established the SEC and gave it broad authority to enforce the Securities Act of 1933 as well as to regulate all aspects of the securities industry.

Impacts: Establishment of the SEC and passage of Glass-Steagall were important steps in restoring public confidence in the economy. Congress took a further step in 1935 when it required that public utilities also had to register with the SEC, which was given the power in the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) to break up utility companies that were guilty of unfair practices and were imposing high costs and delivering poor service.

Over the years,Congress has made sure that the SEC has kept current with changes in the financial industry. Soon after the SEC’s establishment, Congress passed the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which combined to give the SEC regulatory authority over participants and products such as investment advisors and mutual funds that were not yet specifically regulated by earlier legislation. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was passed to, among other things, “protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures.”

Some of the SEC’s most notable recent accomplishments have been actions taken in response to the 2008 financial crisis. In the years following the crisis, the SEC significantly expanded its regulatory enforcement activities, and took steps to protect investors from future catastrophes. These efforts included streamlining the SEC’s investigation process, expanding regulation to previously unrelated markets like derivatives, and instituting circuit breakers in the stock exchange to lessen the impact of a rapid market decline caused by technologies that facilitate almost instantaneous trades based on pre-defined inputs.

Established: June 19, 1934

Mission: To regulate interstate and international communications over radio, television, wire, satellite and cable.

Reason for creation: The FCC’s creation was the culmination of decades of governmental efforts to manage the complexities of communications technologies.

The regulation of radio communication dates back to the Wireless Ship Act of 1910 which required cruise ships to have a radio and radio operator on board capable of communicating with other communications systems. When radio noise prevented the sinking Titanic’s emergency alerts from quickly being relayed to authorities, Congress decided that more comprehensive regulation was needed. The subsequent Radio Act of 1912 gave the federal government control over the broadcast spectrum, required that all radio operators be licensed, and gave priority to distress calls. Over the next two decades the radio environment–and policy–continued to evolve.

By the 1920s, commercial radio operators were becoming more prevalent and the broadcast spectrum, which determines the number of frequencies on which radio can be delivered, was beginning to fill up. While the Radio Act of 1912 had required all broadcasters to obtain licenses, the courts had consistently ruled that the government could not stop issuing licenses even if the broadcast spectrum was full. This led to passage of the Radio Act of 1927 and the establishment of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). The FRC was granted the authority both to assign broadcasters to specific radio frequencies and to deny licenses to broadcasters when the spectrum was full.

The FCC replaced the FRC when Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1934, which expanded the government’s jurisdiction to include long-distance telephony.

Impacts: Over its eight decades of operation, the FCC has had to adapt to numerous changes in the media market.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the FCC intervened in the media marketplace in order to break up monopolies. Most notable was the FCC’s investigation and report on anti-competitive practices by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). After years of legal battles— including a case that reached the Supreme Court—the FCC was able to force NBC to split into smaller corporations.

As the licensor of the limited number of broadcast frequencies on radio and then also on television, Congress believed that the federal government should expect broadcasters to serve the public interest and made this a part of the license requirement. This was an early version of the Fairness Doctrine. Later, in an attempt to ensure a diverse representation of information and opinions, the FCC revised the Fairness Doctrine in 1949. The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters devote airtime to important issues affecting the public and that, in their explanations of those issues, they include differing points of view. It was eliminated in 1987, however, as different viewpoints became more accessible via cable television and the emerging Internet.

Over the last several decades, the FCC has overseen the growth of the wireless phone network and the Internet. The commission’s regulation of internet providers has led to contentious disagreement around the issue of net neutrality. Net neutrality refers to the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all internet traffic equally and not block, slow down, or charge fees for certain content. Prior to 2017, the FCC generally upheld net neutrality but has since rejected it.

Established: August 14, 1935

Mission: To deliver social security services that meet the changing needs of the public.

Reason for creation: The Social Security Administration (SSA) was created to help elderly Americans meet basic living expenses as their earning power declined with age and to provide unemployment insurance to the unemployed.

The Great Depression plunged the country into a period of economic turmoil and, in doing so, revealed many of the vulnerabilities the industrial revolution had created. Millions of Americans became unemployed and were unable to procure even basic necessities, and elderly citizens were especially impacted. By the 1930s, most other industrialized nations had some form of public social security program and public outcry for an American public pension system began to grow. Throughout the first several years of the Great Depression, various programs were proposed and debated without any becoming law.

Ultimately, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a program based on European systems of economic security in which workers contributed a portion of their income to fund the pensions of retired citizens. FDR formed the Committee on Economic Security (CES) to draft such a program. The CES’s proposed program included a pension for the elderly, unemployment benefits, health insurance for those with financial need, benefits for widows with children, and assistance for disabled citizens. After extensive congressional debate the legislation which ultimately reached FDR’s desk, the Social Security Act of 1935, only included federal benefits programs for retirees and the unemployed – but did include money for states to help some of the other groups mentioned in the CES’s proposal. The act established the Social Security Board to manage and run the programs.

In 1946, the Social Security Board was renamed the Social Security Administration.

Impacts: Since its first implementation, the Social Security program has expanded in order to provide more benefits to more citizens. In 1956, a disability program was added to help those unable to work due to a disability. Medicare, a Social Security healthcare program, was established in 1965. In 1975, automatic cost of living adjustments were instituted for benefit payments.

Today, the majority of American retirees rely on Social Security as a major source of income. It is particularly important for low-income retirees. In addition to senior citizens, the program also lifts more than 1 million children out of poverty. It remains one of the Federal Government’s most popular programs with 74% of Americans opposing cuts to benefits.

Established: July 1, 1946

Mission: To save lives, protect people from health threats, and increase the health security of the nation.

Reason for creation: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began operating in 1946 as the direct institutional successor of the Office of Malaria Control in War Areas and carried on the mission of that office: the eradication of malaria in the United States. Due to its quick success in achieving this goal (the US was declared malaria free in 1948), the CDC’s mission was expanded to include other infectious disease-related efforts.

Infectious diseases had plagued the American population since the first settlements were established in the 1600s. During colonization of the American continents, many millions of Native Americans were killed by smallpox transmitted by European settlers. In 1793, an outbreak of Yellow Fever wreaked havoc in Philadelphia. The 19th century brought several waves of cholera, which at one point caused as many as 100,000 people to flee from New York City, and scarlet fever, which was especially deadly for children. Then, in the decades preceding the CDC’s formation, Spanish Flu ravaged the American people, killing around 675,000 Americans.

A crucial part of fighting infectious diseases is tracking their spread and impact. While individual state governments like Rhode Island had been collecting public health data since before the American Revolution, it was not until the mid-19th century that the federal government began to do so. In 1850, nationwide mortality statistics were first published. Then, in 1878, the National Quarantine Act shifted disease-related quarantine responsibility from states to the Federal Government. By 1925, all states were reporting instances of infectious disease to the federal government.

Many of the CDC’s public health duties were once performed by the United States Public Health Service (USPHS). The USPHS’s institutional roots lie in the Marine Health Service which was established in 1798 as a resource for sick or disabled seamen. Today, the USPHS exists primarily as an elite team of highly trained healthcare professionals who can be deployed throughout the United States and the world in response to health emergencies.

Impacts: The CDC’s successes are wide ranging and numerous, from its 1955 taxonomic research on Enterobacteriaceae bacteria (an antibacterial-resistant family of germs including E. coli and Salmonella) to its effectiveness in linking the 1976 outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease to a milder illness identified in 1968 that was caused by the same bacteria (contributing to the CDC’s ability to develop a comprehensive list of prevention strategies for businesses and citizens to employ against the disease) to its role in containing the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and preparing for its possible spread to the US. Today, the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) is the branch of the CDC most focused on identifying and fighting new infectious disease outbreaks like the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.

The CDC contributes in numerous other ways to the public health. In 1984, it established the Prevention Research Centers, which seek “to develop, test, and evaluate public health interventions that can be applied widely, particularly in underserved communities.” Through its own work and collaborations with scientists around the world through organizations like the World Health Organization and the Carter Center’s International Task Force for Disease Eradication, the CDC has been a part of monumental public health efforts that have eradicated smallpox and are nearing elimination of polio.

Established: December 2, 1970

Mission: To establish, monitor, and enforce national regulations that protect human health and the environment.

Reason for creation: Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency to consolidate an array of long-standing and new federal environmental responsibilities under one efficient and effective organization. The industrial age brought great advances in standards of living, but also produced downsides (known as negative environmental externalities) that Congress sought to address as early as 1910, with passage of the Federal Insecticide Act to protect farmers and consumers from fraudulent or dangerous pesticide products. In the decades that followed, Congress passed numerous laws that regulated business activity to protect the air, water, fish and wildlife, and other natural resources from industrial pollution.

This legislative activity increased in accordance with public concern during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. A national environmental movement was taking shape and the public was demanding governmental responses to various environmental catastrophes. Books like The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson began to increase public awareness of the dangers of household products like pesticides. Other environmental problems were more obvious and needed little help getting notice: industrial waste was causing rivers to catch on fire, oil spills were destroying beaches, and smog-engulfed cities were threatening the public health of tens of millions of Americans.

Outcry over these issues culminated with President Richard Nixon’s 1970 presentation to Congress about the dire need for extensive federal action on environmental issues. Nixon’s message included a call for large investment in water quality improvements, the institution of air quality and emissions standards, the imposition of lead gas taxes, measures to prevent and address oil spills, and much more. Nixon also created a council tasked with identifying how to best organize federal programs in order to fulfill these goals. The council came to the conclusion that a single agency focused on protecting human health and the environment could provide the most efficient execution of the law. So, Nixon returned to Congress, this time with a proposal to consolidate environmental responsibilities under a new agency: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Congress quickly approved the proposal.

The EPA’s responsibilities include researching the sources and effects of various pollutants, monitoring the state of the environment, establishing environmental baselines so as to measure changes in the state of the environment, setting and enforcing standards for air and water quality and pollutant levels, and providing guidance and expertise to businesses, states, and localities on environmental issues.

Impacts: Landmark pieces of environmental legislation such as the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Acts of 1972 and 1977 contributed to significant improvements in air and water quality in the decades since. Other significant legislation, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (which created the superfund program) and the Safe Water Drinking Act of 1986 have also improved the health and well-being of communities around the country.

The EPA was also instrumental in the United States’ signing of international environmental agreements like the Montreal Protocol, which called for global efforts to protect the ozone layer, and the Paris Climate Accord, which set reduction requirements for countries’ greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit future impacts of climate change.

The Montreal Protocol and the EPA’s associated domestic work to eliminate the use of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) represents one of the agency’s greatest successes. In the 1970s, scientists identified several aerosols that were causing severe damage to Earth’s protective ozone layer. The US government and governments around the world responded quickly to this science and phased out nearly all gasses associated with ozone depletion. The EPA led this effort in the US. While it will take decades for the ozone layer to heal to pre-1980 levels, the trajectory is positive.

The EPA also launched Energy Star, a market-driven energy conservation program that was the nation’s first climate change program to curb greenhouse gases.

Established: October 15, 1974

Mission: To protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing and administering federal campaign finance laws.

Reason for creation: Creation of the FEC culminated a long history of efforts to limit the influence of money in politics. Such concerns date back at least to Andrew Jackson, who is credited with creating the spoils system of political patronage. Jackson promised positions of influence in his government to individuals and businesses who supported him during his campaign. He was also the first candidate to raise a substantial sum of money to fund his campaign – much of it from his loyal civil servants. The system of patronage continued without meaningful challenges until an 1867 Naval Appropriations Bill made it illegal for government officials to solicit political donations from naval yard workers.

Congress continued to tinker with election reform over the next 100 years, passing at least nine pieces of significant legislation before passing the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) in 1971 and its 1974 amendments that created the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) as an independent agency responsible for administering and enforcing campaign finance laws, including public financing of presidential elections.

Impacts: One of the FEC’s first actions (in 1976) was to start auditing all presidential campaigns which received public campaign funds. Then, in 1979, the agency required that all presidential candidates must submit personal financial information to the FEC. In addition to promoting general transparency, these requirements allow the FEC to identify potential conflicts of interest and illegal financial actions on the part of the candidate. These provisions do not require candidates to make public their personal tax returns, although many candidates voluntarily submit them for public scrutiny.

In general, however, the FEC has been limited in its efforts by new legislation and the courts. In 1979, additional amendments to FECA created a loophole in reform efforts for what is now known as “soft money” – funding that flows to party building rather than directly to a campaign. This end-around previous legislation once again allowed corporations and unions to donate unlimited amounts.

Decisions in two court cases, Buckley v. Valeo in 1976 and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, undermined the laws that the FEC was created to enforce. The decision in Citizens United, in fact, has led to an unprecedented inflow of money into election campaigns.

Established: July 21, 2011

Mission: To protect consumers in the financial markets from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and to take action against companies that break the law.

Reason for creation: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), authorized by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, was formed in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008-2009 as a means of creating more transparent oversight of financial institutions. The CFPB was designed to provide a single point of accountability for enforcing federal consumer financial laws and protecting consumers in the financial marketplace. Previously, that responsibility was divided among several federal agencies including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and others.

During the second half of the 20th century, as financial markets grew more complex and more deeply embedded in Americans’ everyday lives, several pieces of legislation were instituted to protect consumers as they navigated the changing financial environment.

The 1968 Truth in Lending Act (TILA) required credit companies to provide consumers with information about the terms, costs, and conditions associated with their services. The Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1968, the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA) in 1975, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) in 1978 and the Fair Credit and Charge Card Disclosure Act (FCCCA) in 1989 all added to the TILA to protect consumers against billing errors, abusive collection methods, and to specify and expand the types of information creditors are required to disclose to consumers.

However, all these legislative projects did not prevent the 2008 financial crisis. Largely caused by misleading and dishonest lending practices, the economic disaster plunged the US and world economies into a recession. In June 2009, President Obama proposed establishing a financial agency that would focus directly on consumers rather than on larger markets or monetary policy. The following year, that proposal was realized through the establishment of the CFPB.

Impacts: In 2013, the CFPB set new standards for the mortgage market that require lenders to verify that borrowers are able repay the loans they are taking out.

Additionally, the CFPB has cracked down on financial corporations engaging in illegal behavior. In 2014, the bureau ordered Bank of America to return $727 million to consumers impacted by deceptive marketing and unfair billing practices. In 2015, it ordered Citibank to return $700 million to customers for similar reasons.

Through enforcement actions like these, in the first five years of its operation, the CFPB provided $11.7 billion in relief to consumers. The bureau has also handled over 1 million complaints made by consumers.