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.
Once again, the one guy is supposed to have all the executive power by law.
We have a Constitutionally mandated unitary executive who is vested with supreme executive authority, these agencies are more akin to limb extenders he's using to help him poke someone in the eye in California from Washington.
The current problem is that the one guy who is required to be supreme in our executive (who once again, is supposed to stand-in for the population as a unified entity), does not actually control that power unless he bends the knee to the agencies and inverts the hierarchy of authority.
That's all Trump is proposing to solve and all Trump would be allowed to solve under the existing Constitution: the vestment of power back into the hands of the one elected official who is supposed to have it by law.
The only ways we get away from that requirement of a unitary executive are an amendment to the Constitution, or complete civil collapse where the current founding documents are thrown out anyway. Anything other than a unitary executive right now is illegal.
If we want to talk about some other structure where there is a larger group vested with executive authority, fine. But that's not the system we currently have, or are supposed to have under our founding charters, and it's a useless argument.
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.
Once again, the one guy is supposed to have all the executive power by law.
We have a Constitutionally mandated unitary executive who is vested with supreme executive authority, these agencies are more akin to limb extenders he's using to help him poke someone in the eye in California from Washington.
The current problem is that the one guy who is required to be supreme in our executive (who once again, is supposed to stand-in for the population as a unified entity), does not actually control that power unless he bends the knee to the agencies and inverts the hierarchy of authority.
That's all Trump is proposing to solve and all Trump would be allowed to solve under the existing Constitution: the vestment of power back into the hands of the one elected official who is supposed to have it by law.
The only ways we get away from that requirement of a unitary executive are an amendment to the Constitution, or complete civil collapse where the current founding documents are thrown out anyway. Anything other than a unitary executive right now is illegal.
If we want to talk about some other structure where there is a larger group vested with executive authority, fine. But that's not the system we currently have, or are supposed to have under our founding charters, and it's a useless argument.