Isn’t this just a restoration of the Constitutional order? None of these bureaucracies have Constitutional existence and their ‘independence’ allows them to be tyrannical. So, what I’d like to see is a massive trimming of the Federal Government. Some departments to eliminate, significantly reduce, or restructure: Education, EPA, Energy,Commerce, BATF, IRS.
Isn’t this just a restoration of the Constitutional order? None of these bureaucracies have Constitutional existence and their ‘independence’ allows them to be tyrannical. So, what I’d like to see is a massive trimming of the Federal Government. Some departments to eliminate, significantly reduce, or restructure: Education, EPA, Energy,Commerce, BATF, IRS.
Yes, these agencies are all already executive branch, and exist for the benefit of the President, to make his job easier. They are not independent like the NYT is claiming, and they are not non-executive like Gato seems to think.
Trump is correctly illuminating how the executive bureaucracy has become an extra-Constitutional 4th branch of government, and a corrupt mire that is no longer serving the people through the single elected representative we have in the executive (the President being the unitary executive in the American system), and needs to be reigned back to the direct control of the duly elected representative, or killed off if it refuses to be reigned back in.
This is correct Constitutionally, and he's recommending a decrease in size and scope of government, not an increase. I'm usually with Gato, but there have been some real stinkers lately.
I don't believe Gato asserts a Truth Value to that NYT reference. I think he was merely suggesting a scenario which more than a few would find distasteful, and with which others can sympathize even if they don't harbor dislike for Trump, as motivation for - I think almost specifically - the many Anti-Trump People of All Jersey Colors so that they can apreciate the peril of their own most assuredly justifiable seizure of power.
I read this more as he thinks bringing these agencies under control of the President is somehow the executive becoming more powerful, even though these agencies are already executive branches and the point here is to let the actual elected person yoink a bunch of power back from these unelected career bureaucrats.
...the President is already nominally in charge of these agencies, that's the point. They're executive agencies, the President is the unitary head of the executive. Their current "independence" is predicated on their ability to act as arms of the President in the enforcement of law, that's it.
Trump's point is that they are no longer listening to the President, and that's a grave problem which needs to be solved immediately, or we're just a military/intelligence junta by another name. Gato, and potentially you, and the NY Times, appear to think that these agencies live in some kind of independent branch of government that a President could conquer and use to increase his own executive power.
I understand the desire to not have one single person with full executive power, but I'd much rather have an elected body or person with full executive power than thousands of people who cannot be removed from office holding that full executive power, and the current civic system of the US is extremely clear that the executive is supposed to be unitary.
"but I'd much rather have an elected body or person with full executive power than thousands of people who cannot be removed from office holding that full executive power"
As would I and, fortunately for me, I see more than two options.
I would prefer if you stopped being coy about this.
If you're referring to an option outside of the two presented here (current paradigm of overly independent agencies vs Trump's promises for re-establishment of a Constitutional unitary executive), then we're talking about a hypothetical post-collapse situation, as such fundamental change is unlikely or impossible without a wide civic and social crisis.
In such a case, I sincerely doubt we wind up with anything resembling the existing civic structure anyway, and the argument for what changes need to be made to this structure to avoid concentration of power are moot anyway.
1. Accept the Alphabet Agencies as they exist, corrupt and unaccountable. #YayJunta!
OR
B: Let Our Guy - the guy in *glances down at garments* This Colored Jersey - ruthlessly control all actions of the unaccountalbe bureacracies. #YayDictator!
I see at least one more choice:
(iii) Move all the Alphabets to non-DC HQs - there's some cool juice for moving FBI to Huntsville; I endorse getting away from the Beltway - and thin the herds. Allow them to do research and make suggetions and, when it comes time to implement policy, well... that's in Article 1 of the Constitution. The part about the Legislature.
Article 2 limits the Executive Branch from actually instituting law. Like,, it's just not proscribed and is therefore, by definition, UnConstitutional.
How likely is my suggestion? It's pretty much this that you wrote that a couple comments up: "how the executive bureaucracy has become an extra-Constitutional 4th branch of government"
I'm just suggesting that we don't improve their functionality nor their morality by having them act at the behest of My Ruthless Dictator.
Completely not coy, almost completely derived from your own sensibly presented evidence, only adding just one more not-so-completely-hopeless alternative.
...move their HQs. That's the plan? In the digital era, the era of remote work, the best idea you can come up with to put the power held in the unaccountable bureaucracy back in the hands of the people and their elected representatives, is to move their physical headquarter locations?
How on earth would that do anything? Do you think that these agencies are unaccountable because they happen to be located physically near other government buildings? That the already-existing local branches of things like the FBI, DHS, and NSA wouldn't just continue merrily oppressing the population regardless of the address on the letters from HQ?
Trump's point is that these if these agencies need to continue existing (and they probably do at least for the moment in a country this size), they need to be subordinate to the people through the elected representative of the people, and that requires the number of agencies and the number of people they employ be drastically reduced. I would also hope that it's obvious that establishment-friendly Presidents are already commanding dictatorial power, thanks to the size and scope of these agencies, and the ability for the President to hide the dictatorship within the bowels of the unaccountable bureaucratic system. Removing these agencies from the chain of command terminating in the seat of the President hasn't bought us anything, in fact, the lack of open Presidential involvement is what allows some of the worst abuses to take place, and makes it much harder for the courts to apply Constitutional limitations on the executive (see Chevron Doctrine).
Moving physical HQ locations lands us exactly where we currently are in option A, except with the illegal warrants being signed "Huntsville" instead of "Washington DC", while Trump's proposal at least tries to tie a chain of command from these agencies back to the people through the electoral process, and is clearly stating the intent to "thin the herd" during that process. If that one day lands us in a mask-off dictatorship we have to revolt against ok, that's literally where we already are, except our current one is still managing to keep the mask on for half the country.
"How on earth would that do anything? Do you think that these agencies are unaccountable because they happen to be located physically near other government buildings?"
Actually, paritally, yes. More that Government People are always hanging out with other Government People. Yeah, really.
But, again, I'm only suggeting that we not succumb to "Give my guy all the power."
"that's literally where we already are"
No, we're figuratively at "mask-off dictatorship" and we never want that at all.
Isn’t this just a restoration of the Constitutional order? None of these bureaucracies have Constitutional existence and their ‘independence’ allows them to be tyrannical. So, what I’d like to see is a massive trimming of the Federal Government. Some departments to eliminate, significantly reduce, or restructure: Education, EPA, Energy,Commerce, BATF, IRS.
Yes, these agencies are all already executive branch, and exist for the benefit of the President, to make his job easier. They are not independent like the NYT is claiming, and they are not non-executive like Gato seems to think.
Trump is correctly illuminating how the executive bureaucracy has become an extra-Constitutional 4th branch of government, and a corrupt mire that is no longer serving the people through the single elected representative we have in the executive (the President being the unitary executive in the American system), and needs to be reigned back to the direct control of the duly elected representative, or killed off if it refuses to be reigned back in.
This is correct Constitutionally, and he's recommending a decrease in size and scope of government, not an increase. I'm usually with Gato, but there have been some real stinkers lately.
"I'm usually with Gato"
I don't believe Gato asserts a Truth Value to that NYT reference. I think he was merely suggesting a scenario which more than a few would find distasteful, and with which others can sympathize even if they don't harbor dislike for Trump, as motivation for - I think almost specifically - the many Anti-Trump People of All Jersey Colors so that they can apreciate the peril of their own most assuredly justifiable seizure of power.
I read this more as he thinks bringing these agencies under control of the President is somehow the executive becoming more powerful, even though these agencies are already executive branches and the point here is to let the actual elected person yoink a bunch of power back from these unelected career bureaucrats.
"I read this more as he thinks bringing these agencies under control of the President'
And I read it as an example of things that we wouldn't want The Other Guy in charge of, no matter which Jersey he donned to get to The Oblong Office.
...the President is already nominally in charge of these agencies, that's the point. They're executive agencies, the President is the unitary head of the executive. Their current "independence" is predicated on their ability to act as arms of the President in the enforcement of law, that's it.
Trump's point is that they are no longer listening to the President, and that's a grave problem which needs to be solved immediately, or we're just a military/intelligence junta by another name. Gato, and potentially you, and the NY Times, appear to think that these agencies live in some kind of independent branch of government that a President could conquer and use to increase his own executive power.
I understand the desire to not have one single person with full executive power, but I'd much rather have an elected body or person with full executive power than thousands of people who cannot be removed from office holding that full executive power, and the current civic system of the US is extremely clear that the executive is supposed to be unitary.
"but I'd much rather have an elected body or person with full executive power than thousands of people who cannot be removed from office holding that full executive power"
As would I and, fortunately for me, I see more than two options.
I would prefer if you stopped being coy about this.
If you're referring to an option outside of the two presented here (current paradigm of overly independent agencies vs Trump's promises for re-establishment of a Constitutional unitary executive), then we're talking about a hypothetical post-collapse situation, as such fundamental change is unlikely or impossible without a wide civic and social crisis.
In such a case, I sincerely doubt we wind up with anything resembling the existing civic structure anyway, and the argument for what changes need to be made to this structure to avoid concentration of power are moot anyway.
Coy how? You offer a false dilemma:
1. Accept the Alphabet Agencies as they exist, corrupt and unaccountable. #YayJunta!
OR
B: Let Our Guy - the guy in *glances down at garments* This Colored Jersey - ruthlessly control all actions of the unaccountalbe bureacracies. #YayDictator!
I see at least one more choice:
(iii) Move all the Alphabets to non-DC HQs - there's some cool juice for moving FBI to Huntsville; I endorse getting away from the Beltway - and thin the herds. Allow them to do research and make suggetions and, when it comes time to implement policy, well... that's in Article 1 of the Constitution. The part about the Legislature.
Article 2 limits the Executive Branch from actually instituting law. Like,, it's just not proscribed and is therefore, by definition, UnConstitutional.
How likely is my suggestion? It's pretty much this that you wrote that a couple comments up: "how the executive bureaucracy has become an extra-Constitutional 4th branch of government"
I'm just suggesting that we don't improve their functionality nor their morality by having them act at the behest of My Ruthless Dictator.
Completely not coy, almost completely derived from your own sensibly presented evidence, only adding just one more not-so-completely-hopeless alternative.
Sorry ?
...move their HQs. That's the plan? In the digital era, the era of remote work, the best idea you can come up with to put the power held in the unaccountable bureaucracy back in the hands of the people and their elected representatives, is to move their physical headquarter locations?
How on earth would that do anything? Do you think that these agencies are unaccountable because they happen to be located physically near other government buildings? That the already-existing local branches of things like the FBI, DHS, and NSA wouldn't just continue merrily oppressing the population regardless of the address on the letters from HQ?
Trump's point is that these if these agencies need to continue existing (and they probably do at least for the moment in a country this size), they need to be subordinate to the people through the elected representative of the people, and that requires the number of agencies and the number of people they employ be drastically reduced. I would also hope that it's obvious that establishment-friendly Presidents are already commanding dictatorial power, thanks to the size and scope of these agencies, and the ability for the President to hide the dictatorship within the bowels of the unaccountable bureaucratic system. Removing these agencies from the chain of command terminating in the seat of the President hasn't bought us anything, in fact, the lack of open Presidential involvement is what allows some of the worst abuses to take place, and makes it much harder for the courts to apply Constitutional limitations on the executive (see Chevron Doctrine).
Moving physical HQ locations lands us exactly where we currently are in option A, except with the illegal warrants being signed "Huntsville" instead of "Washington DC", while Trump's proposal at least tries to tie a chain of command from these agencies back to the people through the electoral process, and is clearly stating the intent to "thin the herd" during that process. If that one day lands us in a mask-off dictatorship we have to revolt against ok, that's literally where we already are, except our current one is still managing to keep the mask on for half the country.
"How on earth would that do anything? Do you think that these agencies are unaccountable because they happen to be located physically near other government buildings?"
Actually, paritally, yes. More that Government People are always hanging out with other Government People. Yeah, really.
But, again, I'm only suggeting that we not succumb to "Give my guy all the power."
"that's literally where we already are"
No, we're figuratively at "mask-off dictatorship" and we never want that at all.
thank you- most illuminating comment in the thread
"Isn’t this just a restoration of the Constitutional order?'"
Yes. *shrugs* Kinda makes you wonder why it's so seemingly controversial.
Everything Constitutional is now controversial... if not out-and-out insurrectionist.
The US hasn't been governed constitutionally since at least the 1930s.
We're the society that saw it necessary to instruct people how to use toothpicks. It shouldn't be so surprising.
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Wonko_the_Sane