4 ms·
> Most of congresses appropriations can't be faithfully executed because they largely violate the tenth amendment This is plainly untrue, as the constitutional
by ModernMech 1y ago
> Most of congresses appropriations can't be faithfully executed because they largely violate the tenth amendment
This is plainly untrue, as the constitutionality of these appropriations can only be established by a court. Bills signed into law are presumed constitutional and valid until an Article III officer decides otherwise. The system is: Congress writes the law, funds the law. President signs the law, executes the law. Court interprets the law, invalidates the law. You can't have the POTUS sign, execute, interpret, and invalidate laws.
Separation of powers is what made the government work. Right now the Article II branch is the one who usurped power, the Congress and SCOTUS abdicated power, and it's causing the government to fail at all levels. If you give the executive the power you want it to have, the entire thesis of the Constitution crumbles (as we are witnessing), so quoting it at this point is futile and meaningless until balance of power is restored.
Right now, what would happen if what you said is true, is every time a new executive comes in, he can invalidate not just the executive orders but all laws passed by the previous administration, on a whim; without review, evidence, or argument he can shut down agencies and choose not to enforce any laws that are politically expedient. That's not how to run a constitutional republic. It's certainly descriptive of another form of government, but here you were quoting the Constitution.
> At the times when the federal government was mostly within the constraints of the 10th amendment, federal spending was under 5% of GDP in non war-time.
You'd have to go back to 1929 to see that kind of spending level. Since then, we went through a great depression and got a New Deal for America, which means the Federal Government has a larger role. We can surely revisit that role, and that's kind of what's happening right now. But it's wrong to say that the spending levels circa 1930s are somehow ideal of more constitutional without presenting more evidence.
- mothballed 1y ago>Court interprets the law, invalidates the law. You can't have the POTUS sign, execute, interpret, and invalidate laws. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45388993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45388993 as to why it takes all three branches agreeing on the constitutionality of a law for it actually to be put in effect and why that doesn't create the kind of dictatorship you're envisioning. >is every time a new executive comes in, he can invalidate not just the executive orders but all laws passed by the previous administration, on a whim; without review, evidence, or argument he can shut down agencies and choose not to enforce any laws that are politically expedient. POTUS is bound by constitution, even if SCOTUS thinks following the constitution is unconstitutional. This doesn't create an unchecked executive -- the legislature can also check the executive by impeaching him if he violates the constitution. >You'd have to go back to 1929 to see that kind of spending level. Since then, we went through a great depression and got a New Deal for America, which means the Federal Government has a larger role. We can surely revisit that role, and that's kind of what's happening right now. But it's wrong to say that the spending levels circa 1930s are somehow ideal of more constitutional without presenting more evidence. Yes exactly, it was circa the 30s when the apparatus of the state really cranked up to exceed the constitutional constraints of the federal government. The courts would create a more lasting correction to the problem, but that doesn't mean POTUS isn't also bound to stop executing all the unconstitutional laws. A lot of this stems from fraudulent portrayal of intrastate commerce as interstate commerce, which means a great deal of the actions of DEA, ATF, FDA, EPA, etc cannot legally be funded nor most of the wildly unconstitutional provisions of the cherished tyrannical civil rights act.
- ModernMech 1y ago> This doesn't create an unchecked executive -- the legislature can also check the executive by impeaching him if he violates the constitution. The impeachment clause is for high crimes and misdemeanors and is supposed to be an extraordinary procedure that takes an immense amount of time. It's not realistic to rely on it to prevent a President from selectively enforcing or ignoring laws on a day-to-day basis, especially considering it has never been successfully used to remove any president from office even in the case where Trump used his office to extort a bribe. Anyway here's what James Madison had to say about your proposal in Federalst 47: "No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, which the argument supposes, it would be the very worst of all possible governments." > the state really cranked up to exceed the constitutional constraints of the federal government... this stems from fraudulent portrayal of intrastate commerce... a great deal of the actions of DEA, ATF, FDA, EPA, etc cannot legally be funded See, this is the problem with giving a single person the power to decide which laws to implement. You've made sweeping statements about "fraudulent" portrayals and the government exceeding constitutional authority, but these are just your own conclusory assertions. It's not clear that any constitutional constraints were actually violated, that portrayals of intrastate commerce were fraudulent, or that agencies like the DEA, FDA, etc. cannot legally be funded. These claims are unsupported, in fact they are anti-supported by decades of judicial review. Given your position, the President could just decide to shut down those agencies just on the flimsy basis you have provided. That's not how the system works. I and others have realized that, despite your frequent appeals to the Constitution and the Framers, you do not appear to genuinely support the idea of a constitutional republic. Instead, you seem comfortable with a king-like authority, a single individual wielding absolute control over the government. That's a legitimate position, but you should be upfront about it rather than twisting the Constitution to fit your ideology. You're never going to squeeze a dictator-shaped peg into a constitution-sized hole -- doing so destroys the constitutional order.