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Regarding the latest executive order re: independent agencies, I'm struggling to understand why conservatives might think this is a good idea long term. Is the plan to just never lose/hold an election again? It seems like trump is massively expanding the scope of executive power versus judicial/legislative power to the point where any president with more than 41 votes in the senate can do essentially whatever they want, with the sole exception of raising non-tariff taxes. Given that its easier to
create than to destroy[edit: this was a type, I meant "easier to destroy than to create"], that's of course a benefit for anti-welfare conservatives... but direct presidential command over regulation combined with the stance that the president is beholden to nothing but the supreme court seems like a perfect recipe for vindictive actions against corporations and industries that the president doesn't like. And considering the next democratic president is probably going to look much more like the bernie wing of the party than the obama/biden wing of the party, that's a recipe for economic disaster.Necessary disclaimer: I'm a trump-hating neoliberal.
The Legislature is meant to be the conservative aspect of the government. It is supposed to codify things that last, because it is very difficult to get a majority vote on something. This is why congress is supposed to ratify things like treaties. If we want stability, it needs to be explicitly enshrined in Congress.
The Executive is meant to be dynamic. It responds to events as they arise and is supposed to be under the control of the elected President. It should work this way. The new President comes in, representing the will of the entire American people, and determines governmental policy not codified in Law. What the executive does should change every time the President takes control.
A lot of things that are "regulations" should be laws, if they are something Congress can agree on. If Congress cannot agree on them, how is it reflective of our Republic to put unelected, unaccountable people in charge of making them and nothing the American people can do to stop them?
Yes, this is exactly my point. This executive order shifts power from the conservative to the-- as you call it-- "dynamic" aspect of the government. And conservatives are happy about this? What?
And your solution to this is to put all that rulemaking power in the hands of the president?
Consider that your theoretical understanding of the role of the various branches is not fully capturing the conservative critique of modern government. The executive already was asserting dynamic authority to make huge policy changes expressly against the will of Congress - e.g. massive expansion of the sweep of "civil rights" legislation, Obama and Biden's policies on immigration, and Biden on COVID policy and student loans - but only when it aligned with certain types of left/progressive priorities. Conservative attempts to push back on these innovations were blocked by recalcitrant and occasionally-outright-insubordinate bureaucracy, creating a one-way ratchet effect. The most recent generation of conservatives have abandoned "traditional" constitutional order for fighting fire with fire and trying to enable conservative executives to act in ways that previously only left executives could.
And they thought the best way to do that wasn't through an act of congress (which they control), or through an act of the supreme court (which they also control), but by massively expanding the scope of presidential power?
You do know that trump is already on his second term, right? You have coinflip odds of winning the presidency in 2028 before taking into account any incumbent-destroying black swans.
It has been a conservative goal for decades to try to shrink the power of the admin state. Yes I guess that increases somewhat the power of the executive but that’s a small price to pay.
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The obvious point would be that the Trumpist movement may be right-wing, but it is in no way conservative.
And yet every self-described conservative I know about it more-or-less happy with it. I assume that they think they're getting something out of it, but I suspect they're engaging in motivated reasoning about the likely strength of the backlash.
Because we hate the administrative state. It is unconstitutional, unaccountable, stifles growth and productivity, and is very statist / progressive. Admin state delenda est.
If the administrative state was unconstitutional the supreme court could have ruled it so.
But that's not really my point. I accept that no one gives a damn about the constitution. Rather, my point is that the cost of making a little more accountable is going to be an administrative state that is significantly more statist, and in the long-run probably more progressive and growth-stifling too. You can easily point at all the regulations you hate, but you're going to have much more trouble identifying all the bad regulations that never existed in the first place.
Now? well, it can take decades to grow a business... but only a few well-placed, well timed regulations and tarrifs to kill one. Making it easier to kill regulations by executive fiat is equivalent to making it easier to implement them. Trump is lubing up the levers of power, but one way or another, he's going to have to give up the stick.
I doubt it. The power existed. It was just very hard to oppose. Now, at minimum it can be opposed every four years.
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Yes, I am happy with more accountability in government. I'd be happier with the Legislature passing actual laws instead of delegating regulations to the Executive. The Legislature should never give an executive department (department implementing laws) the authority to make regulations that they are unwilling to have change every presidency.
The president doesn't have to enforce laws he doesn't want to, and removing the independence of independent agencies removes one of the levers by which to make a president want to enforce laws.
In practice this happens, but it really shouldn't - the President is constitutionally-charged with "faithfully" executing the law. The weaponization of enforcement discretion into a presidential pocket veto is a particularly nasty bit of constitutional hardball that's developed recently.
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While there is some discretion, I would not go that far. I actually really hate it when a president deliberately refuses to enforce a law. There is a problem of enforcement - the president cannot dedicate 100% of resources to enforce 100% of laws 100% of the time. But a president explicitly setting a policy where they refuse to enforce a law should be an impeachable offense.
What is an Independent Agency? What does the word Independent mean? Does it mean something like, "Not accountable to civilian-appointed leaders?" If so, what makes it desirable? People use the word "independent" like it should have positive connotations, instead of horrific ones.
The justification is typically that Independent means non-partisan, but that is naivete. Everyone who makes policy has a side they prefer, a side that gives them more power or makes policies that align more with their own preferences.
There are Judicial Agencies. There are Legislative Agencies. These exist with direct oversight of the bodies that control them. If Congress wants to make another Legislative Agency, that's fine to do so. If Congress wanted to put the rule-making portion of the FCC's scope under themselves, assign a committee to do so and make laws that way, they are free to do so. I would welcome it. As they refuse, we are instead left with a dysfunctional and unbalanced government.
Impeachment is worthless without removal. Given the immunity ruling, the president has the unilateral power to do whatever they want so long as less than 60 people will vote for their removal.
Democrats are staring down the barrel of that right now and believe me, it is terrifying. You better hope republicans have a plan to rig every future election because otherwise that gun will be turned on you.
If congress wants to not have independent agencies, it's within their power to legislate that. They didn't. Trump seized control of the independent agencies away from them by fiat. If they don't do anything about it... well, for now they'll get some easy policy wins. But in the long term, I don't think they're going to enjoy what happens.
I mean, I've been staring at that barrel half my life as well, so my sympathies. Maybe we can agree at this point to not delegate so much to the executive?
What do you think it's been like to be a Conservative this whole time? Do you think we like not having the Comstock Act enforced and have our taxes go to killing babies in their mother's womb? What are you worried about that tops that?
I agree on this point, and that's exactly why I liked that these agencies were independent. The senate could have killed the filibuster instead and started passing laws to deal with the administrative state if they wanted to-- but they didn't because presumably the ability to loot the government and install bureacrats via a patronage system is more convenient. Oh well.
Climate change. I'm a catholic, and therefore anti-abortion, but the net effect of stuff like "not funding abortions" is dramatically outweighed by the net increase in deaths caused by droughts, floods, famines, and famine-related-instability.
But oh well, at least this power is symmetric. I hope the next democratic president just straight-up regulates carbon intensive industries out of existence.
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We were staring down the barrel of it previously, and this was the best recourse we could find. I personally would prefer the power not exist; actually using it as we see fit and Progressives resisting where they may is the clearest path to eroding that power that I can see. Under Biden, we already saw state-level defiance to Federal orders. We're seeing more now versus Trump, and we'll see yet more when the Progressives are once more ascendent. Either unified power will break down and durable Federalism emerges from the conflict, or we escalate smoothly to actual civil war.
What you are seeing with MAGA is precisely "I don't think they'll enjoy what happens" for Blue Tribe in general. "I don't think they'll enjoy what happens" wasn't a restraint on Blue ambitions under Obama or Biden (or Clinton or Bush II for that matter). The escalation spiral is a very evident phenomenon. Why expect departure now?
The basic problem is that we can no longer agree on core values, on what the laws should be and how they should be enforced. All the formal structures of our system of government assumed baseline homogeneity of values. Without that, none of this works, and what will happen is what we have seen happening for decades now: irreconcilable values-conflict blowing out one conflict-limiting mechanism after another as the pressure for a resolution one way or the other rises over time. Either someone has to win, or we have to have a divorce. There isn't really a third option.
Republicans control all three branches of government. This was the best recourse you could find? Republicans could easily have looked for a solution that favored the power of the legislative branch (where they have a structural advantage) or the courts (where they'll soon have an incumbency advantage.) Instead, they gave the power to the presidency? Seriously?
This part I agree with. That's why I'm so confused: why are the republicans giving the democrats the ammunition they need to win the divorce?
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This is equivocating on "conservative". (resistance to change versus right-of-center political beliefs)
The Constitution puts the executive power in the hands of the President. That we've built this entire part of government not contemplated by the Constitution doesn't change that; it cannot have independent authority.
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