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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?
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.
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.
Ok, then let's rephrase. Can we agree not to delegate so much to unelected bodies unaccountable to anyone either? I don't want Independent agencies or a Executive with so much regulatory power. I don't want either to have so much regulatory power. I want Congress to stop awarding either with broad powers that are easily abused and difficult to be held accountable.
Do you have evidence for this? I have seen reviews that show that, while the amount of property damage has increased over time, this is not due to storms getting worse, but rather that things have gotten more expensive. It doesn't seem like there has been an increase in deaths as a percentage of population or severity of storms.
If we wanted to reduce the Earth's temperature, we could do it very quickly with some basic geo-engineering. That we don't is a sign that nobody seems to think the problem is very severe yet.
(Also, as a Catholic you should know it's not about the effect of paying for an abortion, it's about the remote material cooperation with evil. Being made complicit in the murder of a baby is the thing that really upsets us and Congress explicitly tried to protect us from.)
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