"... agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits. Its legal underpinning is a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory.... [T]he [unitary executive] theory’s adherents argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them."
Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.
He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.
He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”
Posts
134 comments:
Why should federal agencies be independent of democratic control?
There are very simple questions here that are ignored in the desire to frame up Trump.
Can the President summarily terminate employment of a federal agency head, subordinates, and/or military leaders?
If not, why not? Can Congress pass a law that says the executive can't take executive actions? Can Congress limit the power of the executive and judicial branches?
Can Congress say "You must spent $1 trillion on a program" and the executive must follow that through even with corrupt or incompetent leadership over the program, or insufficient personnel to effectively manage the program as passed by congress and a previous President?
I could go on, but there are some basic premises here that are being waived over.
There's no mention of structural instability problems in the present arrangement.
"He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants if they are incompetent, lazy, shirkers, slackers, or slugs. He believes the federal taxpayer shouldn't be funding and promoting such waste."
There, I fixed for you!
could someone (Any ONE?) please explain how this would be bad?
gadfly? mark? inga? chuck?
speak Up, please
This is just an extension of term 1.
The But Trump, exception to the Constitution.
The soul power of the Executive Branch, rests with the President.
Obama's handlers are the master of this. The master of the long game. Obama made his political appointments. When they wanted to go, he simply moved them into civil service jobs, safe from being turned over at the end of the administration. That level below political appointment, is the level that does all the damage. The appointed Secretary is powerless, without a compliant civil employee class.
Obama also trimmed out all conservative military lifers from getting promoted, leaving room for those of a leftist bent.
But this NYT piece doesn't explore, the FACT, the President does run ALL the executive agencies.
It is maddening when Biden lies and claims he has no idea what Garland is doing. The President of the United States, is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer.
Yeah, the career civil servants who couldn’t figure out who left coke in the White House.
Government at all levels are stuffed with incompetent bureaucratic functionaries. They get a sense meaning in their mediocre lives by welding power over the competent.
.
All good comments, that from DopeFromHope is the early favorite for Threadwinner. Keep up the good work, everyone!
NYT description of Administrative State is a masterful example of Prog Journalistic Spin. When I read it, I could hear the doom-suffused soundtrack.
Follow-up question:
If the voters elect a President who runs on a platform of firing an entire federal agency under the executive (i.e. the department of education), does the President not have that authority because Congress under a prior president wrote a law saying the President doesn't have such authority?
Fine by me.
Only six years too late.
The first and most important set of sweeping changes should start with the Department of Education - and make them has hard-hitting and difficult to change, as possible. This is where the root of the problem lies, and it's the single biggest threat to the nation's future and security.
Good.
Gibar. You're going to hear from Robert Cook.
I guess we get the government we deserve…well, some people deserve. Even if the government is deliberately crashing the plane…
Gilbar - How it would be bad? Gee, I don't know. Dismantle the administrative state? Fire federal employees for doing their job - e.g. implementing duly enacted laws. Unilaterally decide who is prosecuted and who is not. Heck, why shouldn't he also decide who is convicted. No need for juries. Take all the power away from Congress. Why not also from SCOTUS. Why do they did to decide what is and is not constitutional? Nothing in the Constitution says that. But if you want to be ruled by a dictator with absolute power, happy days ahead. Oh and never mind that given the elector college, one could become the president and lose the popular vote by tens of millions.
Refresh my memory. Did anyone here object when Obama by executive memorandum implemented DACA? What was your reason, I forgot. I think it had something to do with usurping the power of Congress. But maybe I'm mistaken.
Why would we want a bunch of totally unaccountable bureaucrats making rules for us?
Professor Philip Hamburger put it more succinctly in his book Is Administrative Law Unlawful? and the WSJ took a more honest look at the issues two weeks ago previewing the SEC v. Jarkesy case that SCOTUS will take up next term. Interesting Trumpcentric framing by the Times but it obscures more than reveals the the danger of pretending bureaucrats can’t be supervised by management.
"He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants"
Be still, my beating heart!
I have long proposed (in an entirely immodest manner) that we need to go back to a patronage system for a century or so. Yes, the problems with such a system are obvious; but so, too, are the problems with our current civil service. The latter was not a permanent fix for ills in the executive branch. Rather, this arena is more like a pendulum and it needs to swing back the other direction for quite a while.
"Why should federal agencies be independent of democratic control?" Totally agree. Nothing democratic about elected officials voting on laws telling agencies what to do.
Serious (followup) questions
Where are the 10 richest counties in the USA, that AREN'T in the DC metro area?
How IS it? That the richest, most affluent people in the USA are civil servants?
Doesn't THAT Seem ODD?
"Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them."
Right, if you go by the actual, you know, Constitution. Which is, like, 100 years old or something.
But since actual government hasn't operated according to the actual Constitution for years, what difference, at this point, does it make?
The Constitutional problems with so-called “independent agencies” is that they arrogate to themselves legislative (rule -making), executive (enforcement /prosecutorial), and judicial (adjudicative) powers. These small fiefdoms, ruled by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, violate the Constitutional precept of Separation of Powers.
Impoundment of Congressionally appropriated funds was made illegal by the Supreme Court in Train v. City of New York in 1974, coupled with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. I tend to think that Train was based more on the justices’ general antipathy towards Dick Nixon than on sound Constitutional reasoning, but I don’t see that Trump can get 5 votes to overturn it even on this Supreme Court, much less muster enough support in the House and Senate to get the ICA repealed.
This is yet another reason why I argue that Trump has next to zero political instincts. But until DeSantis starts addressing economic issues I don’t see how I can support him instead of Trump. Somewhere in the plethora of candidates there’s got to be a viable “Anybody But Trump” candidate but right now it isn’t Pence, Hutchinson, Christie, Haley, or DeSantis. And if I’m wrong and there’s no alternative to Trump, then Give ‘Em Hell, Donald!
But Mr Gilbar......it's Trump!
Can Congress say "You must spent $1 trillion on a program" and the executive must follow that through even with corrupt or incompetent leadership over the program, or insufficient personnel to effectively manage the program as passed by congress and a previous President?
@TreeJoe, as things stand right now, the answer to all your questions is “Yes.”
Pournelle's Iron Law: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
It's a problem.
NYT publishes shocking news from 2015.
Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies
Read that as unaccountable agencies.
He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda.
That is literally what "Drain the Swamp" means. Didn't Leftist pundits laugh about a "Deep State" that works against the policies of elected
officials?
Another thing that at least the excerpted portion doesn't address is the blatant overreaches of the executive branch under Democrat presidents - presumably because they've already got the "administrative state" on their side. It's ok if they do it, as usual.
If congress wants rules regarding clean air and water, it should pass those rules as laws, not hand off responsibility to an unelected agency.
The Roberts Court decisions that lay the groundwork in this area are a dubious precedent. While the Roberts Court has held limitations on the power of removal to be unconstitutional, none of the cases have actually involved the President firing anyone, and the agencies themselves were found to be constitutional based on “severability”. But if the issue is severable, why should it have been decided, especially on constitutional grounds? One might hope that a second-term Trump unilaterally year-zeroing the structure of the federal government without a vote in Congress would be found to violate the major questions doctrine, but that of course would not stop Trump from trying.
I know of no President in my lifetime that has acted on their own authority as often as Biden. Even in today's news, despite a Supreme Court ruling against it; Biden has decided to transfer $39 billion to banks and universities by declaring forgiveness of student loan debt without any legislative appropriations. $39 billion appropriated and transferred to banks from taxpayers without representative approval in Congress. It is also not the "administrative state" doing this, but President Biden's own claim dictatorial authority to do so; although backed up by a DOJ that will arrest anyone that contests Biden's authority and a DHS that will suppress negative speech about the President.
Why are Federal Agencies "independent"? They don't answer to American's anymore? Who are they accountable to?
Who the hell would think that unchecked power given to unelected bureaucrats?
They need to be defanged. Quickly.
The "unitary executive theory" is not a theory. All those executive branch agencies and employers are, in fact, under the ultimate control of the president. This is not a novel concept. Ergo, the plans being attributed to Trump do not involve "INCREASING presidential power." This is just another example of the NYT's going out of its way to make its readers stupider.
The NYT reminds all of us why voting for Trump in the general election makes sense, despite his flaws.
This is Twitter redux. Leftists have control of Twitter and throttle conservative speech. Elon Musk removes that power and now he’s branded a fascist. Trump threatens to point the already weaponized administrative state at the Left and he’s vilified.
Don't you love how the author feeds liberal morons by claiming Trump wants to "strengthen" Presidential power by defanging unelected bureaucrats who have recently exercised unchecked power?
This is what Democracy looks like. What a joke. It's over people. Half of America are brainwashed liberals.
We can't stop the trajectory that college educated white women have us on. We can put up some speed bumps, but we are all doomed to follow them down the rabbit hole.
I'll be Eve got a degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Ah, let’s ignore the 37 executive orders Biden executed in his first week in office versus Trump’s 4.
Like the civil service in Britain (often referred to as the “Blob”), our experiment with “non-political” agencies and employment has been a hot mess for any Republican administration seeking to change the country’s direction or focus. The effect of our Civil Service reforms has been to create an unelected credentialed class intent on maintaining the status quo and enhancing their own economic security and status. We need to return to the tried and true spoils system.
Donald Trump personally lacks the focus and effectiveness to accomplish major transformations in government. Meanwhile, his acolytes, like most zealots of both parties, dramatically overestimate the power of the presidency. Recall how long it took Trump to get the most limited of "Muslim immigration bans" implemented, or the fact that he didn't in fact "build a wall." Correspondingly, note that Biden can't get student debt forgiven or abortion legalized. Without solid support from Congress and the courts, the president has very limited ability to effectuate fundamental changes in government or policy.
Can the President summarily terminate employment of a federal agency head, subordinates, and/or military leaders? YES.
Can Congress pass a law that says the executive can't take executive actions? Can Congress limit the power of the executive and judicial branches? IT DEPENDS. CONGRESS SAYS WHAT THE LAW IS, AND THE EXECUTIVE MUST FAITHFULLY EXECUTE IT.
Can Congress say "You must spent $1 trillion on a program" and the executive must follow that. YES.
could someone (Any ONE?) please explain how this would be bad?
gadfly? mark? inga? chuck?
speak Up, please
That is easy. Making practically every civil service employee subject to the whims of the president results in politics being injected into every regulatory decision. Jobs are handed out based on loyalty to the administration and who you know, not what you know. You constantly deride political patronage systems, but seem to think it is a good idea for the federal govenrment.
I thought it was a tenet of conservatism that job assignments should be based on merit.
Just don’t act outraged when the next Democratic president uses the new powers to be granted to Trump are used in manner you never imagined or approve.
Can the President summarily terminate employment of a federal agency head, subordinates, and/or military leaders? YES.
This is of course bullshit. Political appointees (those listed in the "Plum Book") can indeed be summarily terminated (more likely "asked" to resign) by the president, everyone else, no. Even career SES employees cannot be summarily terminated, they can however be removed from their current position and offered an equivalent position in, say, Barrow, Alaska.
TreeJoe said...
There are very simple questions here that are ignored in the desire to frame up Trump.
Can the President summarily terminate employment of a federal agency head, subordinates, and/or military leaders?
If not, why not? Can Congress pass a law that says the executive can't take executive actions? Can Congress limit the power of the executive and judicial branches?
Can Congress say "You must spent $1 trillion on a program" and the executive must follow that through even with corrupt or incompetent leadership over the program, or insufficient personnel to effectively manage the program as passed by congress and a previous President?
I could go on, but there are some basic premises here that are being waived over.
7/17/23, 6:26 AM
1. Unless they are Civil Service employees I believe all executive branch employees ,work at the will of the President. Look how hard it was to fire McCabe. I do believe that employees could be reassigned. “Hey Andy McCabe. We have reassigned you to the Paper Clip Counting Team.”
2.Congress is the preeminent branch of government. Their primary tool is the power of the purse. A big source of our current problems with the administrative state is that Congress refuses to do its job.
3. If Congress passes a program costing $1 trillion the Constitution requires the executive to carry it out.
I am in favor of anything with the force of law to require passage by both houses of Congress and then the signature of the President. I am in favor of completely removing ANY rule or regulation with the force of law which does not meet this requirement. NOWHERE in the Constitution is the Congress and President empowered to delegate this authority to ANY agency.
“ Why would we want a bunch of totally unaccountable bureaucrats making rules for us?”
The official answer in the prevailing case law is that they are supposed to be neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics. Or so Congress decided when setting up the structure within which they operate. And they can still be fired for good enough reasons.
Here’s the most useful recent case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seila_Law_LLC_v._Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau
Freder Frederson said...
whims of the president results
Right there is how you know liberals "protecting democracy" is all bullshit. Election results are whims. Freder wants to run you life. American people have no rights to govern or regulate the bureaucratic state. The permanent bureaucrats are liberals who will protect their well being and wealth. This gets even more dangerous and totalitarian when elections are fraudulent. Then, it's now longer just a whim.
If a thing can be measured then it can be regulated.
I should probably just leave it at that.
However in an administrative state it’s seems that no effort is ever made to weigh the cost-benefit of such regulation.
So it becomes if a thing can be measured it must be regulated.
Any perceived improvement in a condition no matter how minute or how inconveniencing it is to those subjected is all the justification required.
Althouse said...The official answer in the prevailing case law is that they are supposed to be neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics
Well. At least there is an official bullshit answer. How else would we govern ourselves?
Unless your have your head up your ass and completely deny reality, there is no such thing as "neutral experts" nor do "independent judges" exist. It's simply part of the human condition.
These "neutral experts" have made horrible decisions. Everything they lied about and decided during the COVID years were all purposeful "mistakes". School closures. Masks. mRNA poison.
Walker made the same mistake in WI supporting the creation of the Wisconsin Election Commission. They have the authority to ignore and change voting laws on a whim.
Why even have make believe elections anymore? Just let the bureaucrats run everyone's lives and be done with it. I might even support this idea if it would finally get college educated white women to stfu.
I thought it was a tenet of conservatism that job assignments should be based on merit.
Freder actually posts some sensible comments today. The Supreme Court just decided that college admissions should be based on merit. That's a start. Affirmative Action is the opposite of merit. The Left assumes that blacks and POCs are incompetent and must be aided by a thumb on the scale in every situation.
I thought it was a tenet of conservatism that job assignments should be based on merit.
It's also a tenet of conservatism that someone in a position that is failing at their job, for whatever reason (incompetence, willful negligence, etc) should be fired. I would further add that someone who's fired for cause should lose all of their bennies up to and including pension. Screwing the American people to service your own ego or paper empire-building should toll a heavy cost. Might keep actors honest going forward if this was generally the case.
I'm not sure what the answer is overall, but the current setup cannot persist.
Blogger Gusty Winds said...
Why are Federal Agencies "independent"? They don't answer to American's anymore? Who are they accountable to?
The Democrat Party. See how easy that was ?
Just more fake Concern from the Leftwing MSM.
If a Federal agency was full of "Trumpists" and Biden wanted to get rid of them, the NYT and Wapo would be cheering Biden on.
Trump was undercut and his agenda sabotaged by the Federal Bureaucracy. THe DoJ and FBI are crammed full of Leftists who go after Republicans and Conservatives and protect Demcorats and Leftists. Two kinds of justice. Job security for civil servents assumes they will be neutral and objective. They are NOT.
If elected, Trump needs to clean house.
"Or so Congress decided."
Right. Not that it really matters, but how does the Constitution authorize Congress to decide to empower "neutral," "insulated" "experts" in the executive branch?
If congress wants rules regarding clean air and water, it should pass those rules as laws, not hand off responsibility to an unelected agency.
So you want Congress to decide NOx levels in the air, or how much lead, arsenic, mercury, etc is allowed in our drinking water? Here is the current list of chemicals of concern in drinking water, and the law says the list needs to be reviewed and updated every five years. Do you really think Congress has the will or the ability to decide which, and at what level, contaminants belong in our drinking water?
Althouse said: "And they can still be fired for good enough reasons." Then they'll run to a non-judicial "Administrative Law" judge who'll then ascertain they can't be fired. Perhaps this would then run the gamut of actual judicial courts but the denouement will occur long after the end of the POTUS's term.
The FBI is Biden's Gestapo. Merrick Garland and the DOJ are Biden's Wingmen.
50 Intelligence chiefs deliberately lied and said a October 2020 NY Post article on Hunter's laptop was "Russian Disinformation".
Spare me the nonsense about "the poor noble civil servants" losing their job security.
"results in politics being injected into every regulatory decision"
Which, fortunately, doesn't happen today, when we have agencies staffed exclusively by neutral experts acting neutrally.
“Hey Andy McCabe. We have reassigned you to the Paper Clip Counting Team.”
@AMDG, what’s wrong with sending him to count snow ptarmigans outdoors in Alaska in the winter, and reptiles in the Everglades all summer?
"The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies" ( emphasis added)
Has early voting started yet? This may be my number one issue.
Congress could fix this by doing their job and writing more explicit laws, but they consider ambiguity a feature, not a bug. The agencies do their dirty work for them. And the agencies are happy to oblige.
That darn Trump! He keeps getting to the heart of the matter. Anyone that believes that the federal administrative agencies are neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics is in denial about both human nature and the history of the agencies themselves. They reek of politics, and their decisions are nothing but political.
This all leads to the question of when was Woodrow Wilson most wrong. Some say when he fostered the administrative state. Others say when he fired all black members of the federal civil service. I say, who needs to choose?
Democrats love waste, bloat, corruption, personal d-grift, and zero financial accountability to the tax payer.
NYT = Lying liars who lie.
I won't go behind the paywall, but it is unlikely that these NYT hacks have access to Trump's plans. It is surprising that they may have somehow divined what is needed and wanted by the normals not for the sake of business profits, but for the sake of freedom from bureaucratic rule.
And "unitary executive theory"? Oh boy! Another bugaboo joining QAnon, white supremacy, climate change and systemic racism to frighten nitwits into electing incompetent Democrat grifters like QuidProJoe.
In order for the left to maintain control - they must lie and build false narratives. The false narratives are purposeful, to cover for the left's ultimate goal of a single-party state. (dominate communist) control over everything.
You shall not question the corrupt leftists who control all the unaccountable agencies in their purview. If you do question - the left will claim YOU'RE the problem.
Fighting the Administrative State is an existential battle for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. The President should employ all legitimate means to defeat it. Trump didn't do much. Now he is a spent force consumed by anger and revenge. DeSantis seems to have a better idea.
The official answer in the prevailing case law is that they are supposed to be neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics.
So they're supposed to be Plato's Philosopher Kings. Indifferent technocrats. But of course they aren't. They are as influenced by politics, their politics, as anyone else. And the decisions they make, by what standard are they better? Energy independence is, in my opinion, better than energy dependence. So I'm for measures to achieve it. Others may not agree. They have other priorities. This is a situation where there is no right or wrong answer, just competing interests. Therefore, a political decision.
Also, I would think that a few seconds reflection on the covid-19 response from the health bureaucracies and the government's attempt to hide its culpability in the creation of the virus would disabuse anyone of the opinion that indifferent technocrats have superior expertise and are non-political.
Gilbar - there's been a good debate between Philip Hamburger and others on this. See Adrian Vermeule's No
"This is what Democracy looks like. What a joke. It's over people. Half of America are brainwashed liberals."
And the other half of America are brain-dead right-wing extremists.
See how easily that's done?
gilbar (me!) asked...
could someone (Any ONE?) please explain how this would be bad?
let's Look at the responses!
Jim???? couldn't Even address my question, and instead built some straw men..
I don't know..
Unilaterally decide who is prosecuted and who is not.
Heck, why shouldn't he also decide who is convicted. No need for juries.
Take all the power away from Congress. Why not also from SCOTUS.
not Sure, what ANY of that had to do with my question.. So, i'll HAVE TO assume that Jim???? TOTALLY agrees that the Executive should be in charge of the Executive branch-- Thanx Jim!!!!
Fredder thought it'd be Easy!
Making practically every civil service employee subject to the whims of the president results in politics being injected into every regulatory decision.
as opposed to the way things are now?
Jobs are handed out based on loyalty to the administration and who you know, not what you know. as opposed to jobs being handed out based on loyalty to the democrat party?
You constantly deride political patronage systems, but seem to think it is a good idea for the federal govenrment.
DO *i* ??? do *i* REALLY??? Could you an example of *me* EVER deriding patronage? EVER?
I thought it was a tenet of conservatism that job assignments should be based on merit.
Not Sure what THIS has to do, with ANYTHING? Are you implying that jobs NOW are based on "merit"?
Is That the BEST You Can Do? Want to try again
Shorter leftist media: Only democrats are allowed ultimate power.
I am sympathetic to the attacks on the administrative state, but it’s really not clear what the right answers are. To illustrate, could Congress enact a law that creates a Federal Environmental Protection Agency, with its members appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate, and who serve at the pleasure of the president, and further describe its powers as follows,”The Agency is hereby authorized to adopt such regulations for the protection of the environment as it deems appropriate. The agency is authorized to determine whether the costs of such regulations are outweighed by their benefits, and it may consider non-monetary costs and benefits as it deems appropriate. Violations of such regulations will be federal felonies.” The question is not whether agencies can take power, but whether Congress can grant them power, and if there are any limitations on Congress’s power to do that. The Court is starting to grapple with these question with the major questions doctrine. However, Congress can easily get around the major questions doctrine by drafting more carefully, as my hypothetical illustrates.
Serious Question
Who DO federal government bureaucrats answer to??
i KNOW who our state and local bureaucrats answer to: AFSCME
, and NO ONE else
But WHO do the fed bureaucrats answer to? Directly to the democrat party? or is there some middle management?
"Democrats love waste, bloat, corruption, personal d-grift, and zero financial accountability to the tax payer."
Really?
"... agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits.
As hinted to above- agencies that order their employees to take an experimental vaccine that turns out to be more harmful then the disease it turns out the vaccine doesn't stop.
Agencies that order only toilets that use 1.6 gallons of water per flush can be sold- even as it turns out they don't flush and that reduces the water flow in sewers enough that solids don't get washed down and pool up and clog the pipes. Well not just the inadequate toilet flush, the washing machine that can't rinse properly because it's not allowed to use water, the dishwasher that doesn't clean dishes because it doesn't have enough water, etc, etc, etc.
Agencies that take away property rights by declaring you cannot build a house on your 2 acre lot because when it rains there's a puddle in the middle- and somehow that house will affect the navigable waters of the United States.
It's almost like you could fill a book with tales of bureaucrats run wild issuing orders and regulations that in the real world make no sense. One story from old I recall is the packing house that was ordered to put a handrail in an area or it would fail a safety inspection- and then the sanitary inspection failed them because there was a handrail there... so they bult a removable handrail that came and went dependent on which agency was inspecting them next...
And then there's the solar energy scams all approved by those agencies. Cover millions of acres of fertile farmland with solar panels to save the environment. Huh? Make sense to you? Panels that don't generate power at night when power might be needed, or when it's snowing, or raining, and that can be destroyed by a hailstorm as recently happened. Leaving acres of toxic waste and broken glass to clean up.
The writer seems to believe that the executive branch agencies are some sort of de facto fourth branch of the Federal government. They aren't.
"So you want Congress to decide NOx levels in the air, or how much lead, arsenic, mercury, etc is allowed in our drinking water?"
After watching the behavior of the agencies for the last few decades, my answer to that would be 'yes'.
Have the agencies write the regulations, and then have to bring them back to Congress for final approval.
. Even career SES employees cannot be summarily terminated, they can however be removed from their current position and offered an equivalent position in, say, Barrow, Alaska.
Yep.
That's way agencies need to be moved out of DC. Talk is the FBI is going to Alabama. All need to be moved Dept AG, to Witchata. Interior, New Mexico. Small business to Minneapolis. Dept of ED, Grand Island NB. Those agencies will shed blubber like a fat camp in August.
Sebastian sarcastically said...
"Which, fortunately, doesn't happen today, when we have agencies staffed exclusively by neutral experts acting neutrally."
But are they cruelly neutral?
This is just He Wants To Be King, NYT-style...to be picked up by local news outlets nationwide.
“The official answer in the prevailing case law is that they are supposed to be neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics.”
The president could just issue a weekly executive order reversing everything the administrators did that week and requiring them to do what he liked, if he/she wanted to. Hard to argue that the president does not control administrative policy in the executive dept.
He/she could have an assistant read the federal register.
Freder Frederson said...
"So you want Congress to decide NOx levels in the air, or how much lead, arsenic, mercury, etc is allowed in our drinking water? Here is the current list of chemicals of concern in drinking water, and the law says the list needs to be reviewed and updated every five years. Do you really think Congress has the will or the ability to decide which, and at what level, contaminants belong in our drinking water?"
If something needs to be legislated, that's Congress' job. It sounds like you have no faith in Congress' ability to perform its duties.
jim5301 said...
"But if you want to be ruled by a dictator with absolute power, happy days ahead."
Sounds like that's the solution Freder wants.
"agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits."
Lying shit-weasels of the NYT alert. When they say "cut into business profits", they mean, "you will own nothing, and you will be happy".
"Why should federal agencies be independent of democratic control?"
Because if they weren't, they'd collapse under their own weight.
So you want Congress to decide NOx levels in the air, or how much lead, arsenic, mercury, etc is allowed in our drinking water? Here is the current list of chemicals of concern in drinking water, and the law says the list needs to be reviewed and updated every five years. Do you really think Congress has the will or the ability to decide which, and at what level, contaminants belong in our drinking water?
Freder, here I give you a compliment for common sense and you come up with this. Have you seen the "experts" appointed by Biden or his handlers in these areas? Pete Buttplug, a transportation expert, Granholm an energy expert, Podesta, clean energy expert, Becerra a health expert.
"MikeR said...
Pournelle's Iron Law: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
It's a problem."
Why just post a link? Why not save us stupid floks a little time and tell us what it is?
Let me help you with that:
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
-----------
Was that so hard?
"This is just another example of the NYT's going out of its way to make its readers stupider."
No. Stupidest.
"Anyone that believes that the federal administrative agencies are neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics is in denial about both human nature and the history of the agencies themselves."
Denial of human nature? Pretty much the definition of "progressive".
"They reek of politics, and their decisions are nothing but political."
As long as they agree with the politics and decisions, progressives are happy to accept them as "neutral".
"I'll be Eve got a degree from the University of Wisconsin."
No. Smith.
"Unitary Executive Theory." The argument that Article Two, first paragraph, means what it says - EXCEPT TRUMP.
The best evidence that conservatives accept Article Two at face value is that Alejandro Mayorkas, Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray have not been impeached by the Republican House for corruption.
When Democrats steal everything in 2024 expect from their POTUS what the NYT hacks tell us to expect from Trump. That's how it works, you know.
Many of us would be partially satisfied if someone would just take the guns and hollow point ammo away from the Deep Staters before they shoot us for "non-compliance."
"neutral experts"
I would posit that experts cannot be neutral. The only truly neutral person in the kingdom is the village idiot.
I'll give an example.
When a railway spur was abandoned it was added to my property. I was awarded 61 1/2 feet of extra land in my back yard. I had plans for it until the EPA declared it a wetland. It was declared a wetland because in the spring it rains and puddles are made where the tracks were. It does not drain so in a particularly wet year the puddles will remain until fall. It does not drain into any body of water. I know the Supremes rules that if your swamp doesn't drain into an existing larger body of water like a lake or a stream you can use it how you wish. Au contrare. The Illinois EPA won't let me develop the land until they hear from the Federal EPA and then there is the endangers species aspect of it. One year there were ducks. As you can guess the decision could take years.
Most federal jobs are make work cronyism. We could easily get rid of a quarter of the federal workforce and the average American would never notice.
The official answer in the prevailing case law is that they are supposed to be neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics.
LOL that was racist president Wilson's pitch for progressivism anyway, not that it ever works as advertised.
Ron's answer is golden: I would think that a few seconds reflection on the covid-19 response from the health bureaucracies and the government's attempt to hide its culpability in the creation of the virus would disabuse anyone of the opinion that indifferent technocrats have superior expertise and are non-political.
Yes, just one of many real-life examples that should disabuse thinking people of the idea "good governance" is ensconced in the acts of the unaccountable drones of bureaucracy.
"We could easily get rid of a quarter of the federal workforce and the average American would never notice."
Never notice? I'm not sure- getting rid of those "workers" would improve the life of the average American. They might notice that, and insist on further reductions.
Freder Frederson @ 10:05: "...Do you really think Congress has the will or the ability to decide which, and at what level, contaminants belong in our drinking water?" And how do you think the bureaucrats decide these questions today? Insofar as EPA has a bunch of smart informed people looking at drinking water contamination, why not have them do some science and share their expertise with community water suppliers who answer to elected officials in the communities where the water will be used?
Maybe that would reduce the temptation of the activists (and mass tort lawyers drumming up business) to put the arm on a handful of nameless functionaries enjoying fire-proof tenure in some DC office?
Substitute "provide some level of accountability for" instead of "strip employment protection" and you are getting slightly closer to reality.
Rusty. I once had an office next to a major corporation where I once worked decades ago. I knew the CEO and over lunch one day I suggested that if I went and put an X on every other door and cubicle in his headquarters and he decided if the X meant stay or go there would be zero change in the output or profitability. He agreed somewhat sheepishly. Half the bureaucracy could be eliminated and nothing would change except the remainders would have to actually do their jobs.
What I want to know is what the hell is it that the department of education creates that cost so much?
I mean, everybody knows about the costly hammers at the pentagon, but at least they have hammers.
What is the department of education producing?
The great Pat Buchanan used to say… “We're going to shut that place down, padlock it and fumigate it.”
He used to grin while saying it like he knew it would go over well.
Seems to me that the key thing to keep in mind is that, even if he wins, Trump will only have four years, at most, to carry out his grandiose schemes. Like all second-term presidents, he'll be a lame duck on the day he takes office. Moreover, presidential second terms almost always accomplish less than their first. Virtually all of what Trump is proclaiming as his goals will require congressional approval and at least Supreme Court acquiescence. Midterm elections just about always weaken the incumbent president and there's no reason to think that 2026 will be an exception. So, Trump may really only have two years to enact his platform. Most importantly, perhaps, nothing in Trump's first term suggests that he possesses the organizational or strategic capabilities needed to comprehensively transform American government. Call Trump's second term a dream or call it a nightmare, but when all is said and done, more has usually been said than done.
obert Cook said...
"Democrats love waste, bloat, corruption, personal d-grift, and zero financial accountability to the tax payer."
Really?
Cook considers Wikipedia to be a "neutral source" like those bureaucrats that vote 94% for Hillary.
I believe that you could count on one hand the organizations throughout history which, once empowered, did not seek to increase, consolidate and entrench that power.
Why would Federal Agencies behave any differently? (I'm having a hard time thinking of any--maybe some wartime agencies which no longer had a significant purpose. But mostly they get rolled into other agencies or expanded into a new, more expansive "peacetime" role and never get any smaller).
”The question is not whether agencies can take power, but whether Congress can grant them power, and if there are any limitations on Congress’s power to do that. The Court is starting to grapple with these question with the major questions doctrine.”
The Supremes can start with the first sentence of Article I of the Constitution, which declares “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”
Also, Article I, Section 8 (which lists the specific powers of Congress) concludes with the following plenary power: “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the forgoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or any Department or Officer thereof.”
So the question is, what does “All” mean, as in “All legislative Powers…” and “To make all Laws…”
Hey folks! the administrative state only keeps water, air, and food clean and safe and the ONLY DOWNSIDE is that evil corporations have smaller profits!!!
Have the agencies write the regulations, and then have to bring them back to Congress for final approval
--------
As someone who works for o e of those agencies writing regulations, this is how it should be. It would actually make our jobs easier in the long run.
Plus, it would kill what remains of Chevron deference.
"But mostly they get rolled into other agencies or expanded into a new, more expansive "peacetime" role and never get any smaller."
Yep. From the NYT...
The New York Times to Disband Its Sports Department
"The New York Times said on Monday that it would disband its sports department and rely on coverage of teams and games from its website The Athletic, both online and in print.
The shuttering of the sports desk, which has more than 35 reporters and editors, is a major shift for The Times.
Journalists on the sports desk will move to other roles in the newsroom and no layoffs were planned, Mr. Kahn and Ms. Drake said."
It would work the same way with government jobs.
Ambrose asked ...
Why should federal agencies be independent of democratic control
========
A>> could be because they are under Democrat control
"you and what Army?" - the administrative state.
The word is out through all the party organs. We can only learn the degree to which the narrative and reality will align after the votes have been tabulated and expressed to the public as fact.
Governor Lepetomane has put out the red alert. Time for Phony and Baloney to get to work.
If civil service employees are supposed to be "neutral experts who will make better decisions insulated from politics", why do they need a friggin' UNION!!?
“ Yeah, the career civil servants who couldn’t figure out who left coke in the White House.”
They know. They just can’t say. Dan Bonjino is former Secret Service, and they know who was there, and the plastic bag would have retained prints. And from that, it is highly likely that the perp is a Biden.
The executive branch, including the president, is supposed to faithfully carry out the laws passed by congress. The admin state has been busy going way beyond those laws. Simply making stuff up. That is the issue.
Blogger Real American said...
Hey folks! the administrative state only keeps water, air, and food clean and safe and the ONLY DOWNSIDE is that evil corporations have smaller profits!!!
Here ya go. Simple minded folks have lots of reasons to vote for the Biden regime.
Au contrare. The Illinois EPA won't let me develop the land until they hear from the Federal EPA and then there is the endangers species aspect of it. One year there were ducks. As you can guess the decision could take years.
Well you are just full of shit. First off, you get 61.5 feet (how many square feet?) of land for free and you are pissed off because you can't develop it. Secondly, it is not the EPA's decision whether it is a wetland, but the Corps of Engineers.
So the question is, what does “All” mean, as in “All legislative Powers…” and “To make all Laws…”
However it's interpreted, it should probably be done in a rather restrictive (of the government) fashion.
Just a WAG, but I'd be surprised if the guys who wrote the Constitution (you know, the one with three branches) intended that a fourth branch would develop that would be able to do pretty much whatever it wanted to.
@Roadkill711: So, you would read the constitution as if it said, “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the forgoing Powers, BUT EXCLUDING ANY POWER TO DELEGATE ANY AUTHORITY TO MAKE ANY LAW, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or any Department or Officer thereof." I'm not seeing why that's an obvious way to read the Constitution. Carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, you would say that Congress could not delegate to, say, the FTC the authority to determine whether margarine can be labeled "artificial butter" or not, or to the Food and Drug Administration the authority to determine whether the dangerous amount of mercury in sea fish is X% or Y% or some amount in between them. Nor, for that matter, could the Congress make it illegal for brokers or dealers to engage in "manipulative" securities transactions and leave it to the SEC to bring administrative proceedings against brokers or dealers it thought were engaging in manipulative securities transactions, since the very act of bringing those proceedings would establish what the law of "manipulation" means. Am I stating your position accurately?
serious (final) question
If the bureaucrats run the government..
And The Legislature makes the rules that run the bureaucrats..
What, EXACTLY, do you leftists think the President is for?
Is THIS Why, you think a brain dead, dementia patient can be Pres?
To call this deregulation is facetious.
It's ordinary transfer of executive power over the executive branch, only whined about by the media because it doesn't serve their purposes.
What a bunch of dishonest, ahistorical liars.
"Hey folks! the administrative state only keeps water, air, and food clean and safe and the ONLY DOWNSIDE is that evil corporations have smaller profits!!!"
This comment embodies the problem. Nothing is ever clean enough so the march is on to make profits negative, so there are no jobs. The only thing left is a black market, such as drugs, where free trade is allowed with a probabilisticaly applied law enforcement tax (but no consumer protection). No one cares about the human or environmental cost of crime.
Once the enviros win, the crooks lock in the money.
The position is "Chief Executive." The President bears ultimate responsibility for the Executive Branch and therefore should have the right to overrule anything done by it not explicitly mandated by legislation.
As an aside:
And from that, it is highly likely that the perp is a Biden.
I really hope Hunter had to spend an entire long weekend in the backwoods of Maryland jonesing for a hit. It's a pale substitute for justice, but it's the best we're likely to get.
All of this sounds good EXCEPT giving the President more power. Instead of putting independent agencies under the control of the President, abolish them. Do we really want a politician seeking election to control interest rates? We are talking about the President at this point. Set aside your feelings for Trump. How scary would it be right now if Biden had unfettered control of the Fed? Any power you give to Trump, you give to his successor and we have no idea who that could be.
So, abolish independent agencies. And, abolish the other ones too while we are at it. Start with the FBI.
Democrats love waste, bloat, corruption, personal d-grift, and zero financial accountability to the tax payer.
I agree. But, I also know that Republicans feed from the same trough and it got worse under Trump.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/21/foxconn-mostly-abandons-10-billion-wisconsin-project-touted-by-trump.html
The worst part of partisanship is that it causes otherwise smart people to turn a blind eye to 50% of the corruption in our country. Everyone is so convinced that only the "other guys do it," while politicians on both side keep buying bigger beach houses. It's maddening and no one will fucking wake up.
Where was I? Oh yeah, Democrats are crooks....
Mr Wibble said...
"Have the agencies write the regulations, and then have to bring them back to Congress for final approval
--------
As someone who works for o e of those agencies writing regulations, this is how it should be. It would actually make our jobs easier in the long run.
Plus, it would kill what remains of Chevron deference."
Why have the agencys in the first place. The incompetence of the FBI, the CDC, Homeland Security and more in the last few years have proven they aren't necessary. Why have them?
There are no independent regulatory agencies. They are all already part of the Executive branch. If they have wrangled power that a President is afraid to touch then they are a problem.
The statement of how benevolent the government is vs the evil corporations is laughable.
"The statement of how benevolent the government is vs the evil corporations is laughable."
If the government was benevolent (or even moderately competent), the people they employ wouldn't insist that unions were necessary, would they?
Morris Garfinkle will have Trump in prison come election day.
None of this stuff will ever happen.
Secondly, it is not the EPA's decision whether it is a wetland, but the Corps of Engineers.
Both the EPA and the Corp are involved in determining wetlands, you obnoxious asshole.
Now, why don't you call us a bunch of dumbasses again because we don't know who owns Coors Light?
I completely understand Trump’s instincts here. The deep state essentially went to war with his administration and hobbled it for almost the entire term, starting with Mueller, ending with Fauci.
But what happens down the road when some kind of antiwar Democrat decides to cut half the Pentagon? OK maybe today we wouldn’t miss the woke generals that much, but realistically, that wouldn’t be good for the country.
But what happens down the road when some kind of antiwar Democrat decides to cut half the Pentagon?
Have you seen what Biden has done to the Pentagon? Did you miss Obama retiring over half the flag officers who he considered patriotic er right wing?
Freder Frederson said...
"Au contrare. The Illinois EPA won't let me develop the land until they hear from the Federal EPA and then there is the endangers species aspect of it. One year there were ducks. As you can guess the decision could take years.
Well you are just full of shit. First off, you get 61.5 feet (how many square feet?) of land for free and you are pissed off because you can't develop it. Secondly, it is not the EPA's decision whether it is a wetland, but the Corps of Engineers."
And yet my experience tells me differently. Yes. The supreme court is full of shit. Their decision should have been with the Army Corps of Engineers.
BTW. It isn't free. I pay taxes on it. I've tried to give it back to the city. For free.
Maybe we should get rid of your publicly funded job.
@Douglas B, Levene: I wasn’t making an argument or taking a position, but merely pointing out the Constitutional language that SCOTUS would have to wrangle with if this issue ever reaches the high court.
SCOTUS could find Congressional power to delegate legislative authority to agencies in an emanation or penumbra of the word “All.” Or not. I’m cruelly neutral on the subject.
When we vote for President, we are voting for the head of the Executive Branch. It is unambiguous.
"There are no independent regulatory agencies."
Yup.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union representing 750000 federal and D.C. government workers
Source: AFGE's website
There is NO WAY WHATSOEVER that 750,000 unionized workers can be impartial. Self-interest will not permit it.
"Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025."
The president's power is assigned by the Constitution. How could it be increased without an amendment to it?
Oh, wait- NYT, progressives... never mind. Their understanding of the Constitution consists of ignoring it whenever it doesn't allow them to do as they please, so they imagine that's how everybody thinks.
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