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> Chevron deference is the reason the US works at all. Depends on your definition of "works". It is true that many agencies would find it much harder to fulfil

by pdonis 2y ago

> Chevron deference is the reason the US works at all. Depends on your definition of "works". It is true that many agencies would find it much harder to fulfill their current functions. But many of those current functions are not things that should be done anyway, at least not by the government. Also, the entire apparatus of the administrative state, with executive branch agencies issuing regulations that have the force of law, is arguably unconstitutional: Article I of the Constitutions say that all legislative power shall be vested in Congress, and does not allow Congress to delegate it. The justification given by the government, and accepted by the Supreme Court in Hampton Co. v. United States, was that it is ok for Congress to delegate lawmaking to executive branch agencies as long as it gives them an "intelligible principle" to guide them. That is one of many examples of Supreme Court decisions that have no recognizable basis in the Constitution.

cyberax 2y ago
The thing is, what you want is WORSE than the current state. The rule-making process is extremely heavy-weight and slow. On purpose, so the public can comment and challenge the rules at multiple checkpoints. And for most of the routine regular rules (not something "big" like Net Neutrality), the comments are treated seriously. So now imagine that EVERYTHING has to go through the Congress. Congresscritters don't have expertise or time to evaluate and argue each individual point of regulations. So they'll be bundled into omnibus bills, prepared by shady lobbyist groups. There will be no way for you to influence them, especially if your local Congresscritter is not on the relevant committee. And again, even with Chevron deference, the Congress can easily override any regulation by passing a law.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > what you want is WORSE than the current state. No, it isn't, because if Congress is forced to make laws itself, like the Constitution says, it will have to drastically scale back the scope of the laws it makes so it is manageable, and that is a good thing. We have far too many laws as it is. The law needs to be drastically scaled back so it only does what it's supposed to, and is not used, as it is now, as an instrument of ideology and failed social policy.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > No, it isn't, because if Congress is forced to make laws itself, like the Constitution says Yes, and it can make a law saying: "I delegate the tasks within this area to this agency". > We have far too many laws as it is The US actually doesn't have too many Federal laws. Other large countries have a similar number of regulations. > The law needs to be drastically scaled back so it only does what it's supposed to, and is not used, as it is now, as an instrument of ideology and failed social policy. Can you provide examples of that? Most of the current laws deal with mundane rules and regulation. Like food safety or construction standards.
    - pdonis 2y ago
      > it can make a law saying: "I delegate the tasks within this area to this agency". No, it can't. Article I of the Constitution says that all legislative power is vested in Congress. It does not allow Congress to delegate anything that involves making laws. Agency regulations have the force of law, so they are laws as far as the Constitution is concerned, and are supposed to be passed by Congress according to the process given in the Constitution. > Other large countries have a similar number of regulations. That just means other countries also have too many laws. But more than that, if other countries want to have too many laws, that's their problem. They don't have the same Constitution the US does. The US Constitution was intended for a country that did not want a large body of Federal law micromanaging all aspects of people's lives. > Can you provide examples of that? Most of the current laws deal with mundane rules and regulation. Like food safety or construction standards. Food safety and construction standards are examples of ideology and failed social policy. The fact that we all want our food to be safe and construction to be done properly does not mean the government should be making the detailed rules for how those things are done; but our government has chosen to do it anyway because of ideology and failed social policy. In fact having the government do these things is a detriment to those goals, not a help. We have huge factory farms pumping food animals full of antibiotics because of government regulations that favor that kind of farming, not because it makes our food safer; it actually makes our food less safe, but government food safety inspectors watch it happen all the time and do nothing. We have a construction industry full of outdated building techniques and with costs much higher than they need to be because of government regulations that favor builders over their customers and discourage innovations.
HDThoreaun 2y ago
You are arguing for a less effective state though. At some point you have to accept that if we follow the constitution to a T it will lead to measurably bad outcomes that we ought to attempt to avoid. Constitutional amendments are impossible due to tribalism, passing laws is next to impossible because congress is broken. Our options are “corporations write all regulations” or “we stretch the constitution so that experts can write sensible rules”
- pdonis 2y ago
  > You are arguing for a less effective state though. Less effective at messing things up, yes. You left out an alternative: corporations don't get government favors so they actually have to satisfy customers to stay in business.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    When have consumers ever cared about the externalities of the products they consume? You think that if a company starts polluting a river somewhere that will make a material difference to their business if the government couldn’t step in to stop them? Honestly I’m pretty sure that’d be good for sales sinxe they can offer the product at a lower price since they don’t need to clean up after themselves. The government needs to be able to solve market failures in a timely manner.

by pdonis 2y ago

cyberax 2y ago

The thing is, what you want is WORSE than the current state. The rule-making process is extremely heavy-weight and slow. On purpose, so the public can comment and challenge the rules at multiple checkpoints. And for most of the routine regular rules (not something "big" like Net Neutrality), the comments are treated seriously. So now imagine that EVERYTHING has to go through the Congress. Congresscritters don't have expertise or time to evaluate and argue each individual point of regulations. So they'll be bundled into omnibus bills, prepared by shady lobbyist groups. There will be no way for you to influence them, especially if your local Congresscritter is not on the relevant committee. And again, even with Chevron deference, the Congress can easily override any regulation by passing a law.

pdonis 2y ago
> what you want is WORSE than the current state. No, it isn't, because if Congress is forced to make laws itself, like the Constitution says, it will have to drastically scale back the scope of the laws it makes so it is manageable, and that is a good thing. We have far too many laws as it is. The law needs to be drastically scaled back so it only does what it's supposed to, and is not used, as it is now, as an instrument of ideology and failed social policy.
- cyberax 2y ago
  > No, it isn't, because if Congress is forced to make laws itself, like the Constitution says Yes, and it can make a law saying: "I delegate the tasks within this area to this agency". > We have far too many laws as it is The US actually doesn't have too many Federal laws. Other large countries have a similar number of regulations. > The law needs to be drastically scaled back so it only does what it's supposed to, and is not used, as it is now, as an instrument of ideology and failed social policy. Can you provide examples of that? Most of the current laws deal with mundane rules and regulation. Like food safety or construction standards.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    > it can make a law saying: "I delegate the tasks within this area to this agency". No, it can't. Article I of the Constitution says that all legislative power is vested in Congress. It does not allow Congress to delegate anything that involves making laws. Agency regulations have the force of law, so they are laws as far as the Constitution is concerned, and are supposed to be passed by Congress according to the process given in the Constitution. > Other large countries have a similar number of regulations. That just means other countries also have too many laws. But more than that, if other countries want to have too many laws, that's their problem. They don't have the same Constitution the US does. The US Constitution was intended for a country that did not want a large body of Federal law micromanaging all aspects of people's lives. > Can you provide examples of that? Most of the current laws deal with mundane rules and regulation. Like food safety or construction standards. Food safety and construction standards are examples of ideology and failed social policy. The fact that we all want our food to be safe and construction to be done properly does not mean the government should be making the detailed rules for how those things are done; but our government has chosen to do it anyway because of ideology and failed social policy. In fact having the government do these things is a detriment to those goals, not a help. We have huge factory farms pumping food animals full of antibiotics because of government regulations that favor that kind of farming, not because it makes our food safer; it actually makes our food less safe, but government food safety inspectors watch it happen all the time and do nothing. We have a construction industry full of outdated building techniques and with costs much higher than they need to be because of government regulations that favor builders over their customers and discourage innovations.

HDThoreaun 2y ago

You are arguing for a less effective state though. At some point you have to accept that if we follow the constitution to a T it will lead to measurably bad outcomes that we ought to attempt to avoid. Constitutional amendments are impossible due to tribalism, passing laws is next to impossible because congress is broken. Our options are “corporations write all regulations” or “we stretch the constitution so that experts can write sensible rules”

pdonis 2y ago
> You are arguing for a less effective state though. Less effective at messing things up, yes. You left out an alternative: corporations don't get government favors so they actually have to satisfy customers to stay in business.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  When have consumers ever cared about the externalities of the products they consume? You think that if a company starts polluting a river somewhere that will make a material difference to their business if the government couldn’t step in to stop them? Honestly I’m pretty sure that’d be good for sales sinxe they can offer the product at a lower price since they don’t need to clean up after themselves. The government needs to be able to solve market failures in a timely manner.