That seems to be an ongoing headache in the US with executive branch created programs, courts can just immediately squish them or political winds can change, then they're suddenly gone.
Something like this, in order to be permanent, needs congressional approval.
Very. Had the GOP won the senate in 2022, this would have probably been cut already. Depending on how this November goes the policy could definitely be reversed.
> Something like this, in order to be permanent, needs congressional approval.
This program did come from Congress. It was apart of the inflation reduction act.
The ACA is a classical example. Instead of improving it or proposing a real replacement, they campaign for repealing it and some incantations of "free market" without explaining how patients won't get screwed over even more than now.
The president may be all we have, but he is constitutionally forbidden from acting like a king. Though, of course, that hasn't stopped presidents from trying.
This fails to realize Congress works entirely the way it was designed. As you said, inaction == lack of consensus.
Imaging running a country where significant ways of life (influenced by laws) change willy-nilly depending on the flavor of the day? The legal whiplash would be absurd.
So, people often look to the president as some sort of king analog, and demand action via Executive Order - then cry foul when the next president undoes the previous one's EO's... it's lunacy and not a good way to run a society.
Don't really think so.
The 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act subverted the intentions of the founders and clearly swayed the power balance back towards rural areas, even though they have equal representation in the senate.
I don’t think that’s correct. There is way too much propaganda coming from the parties to think that voters have made up their minds based on the facts. It’s actually quite hard to get the facts because the media is mostly reporting politics like they report a football match.
Of course these were not complete elimination of programs, but adjustments. And you could argue that there were other reasons besides partisanship, like the end of the Cold War and budgetary issues.
...you mean when the USSR collapsed, and Cold War ended?
It's going to be hard to argue with people on the basis of what was "good". That's subjective, and the very basis for why there are separate parties.
I'd expand this to examples of either party undoing legislation the other championed and passed. It's exceedingly rare, in large part by design.
We didn't even allow the 2001 Bush tax cuts to automatically expire at the end of 2010, despite control of the House, Senate, and White House passing from the Republicans to the Democrats during the intervening years.
The reason Republicans are mentioned above is that they have a well documented public history of endorsing and carrying out these kinds of shenanigans. Democrats, though cut from the same cloth, somehow manage to be one step above on an imaginary decency scale.
Since the Republicans lacked 60 votes in the Senate and zero Democrats supported the Bush tax cuts, The law enacting them was passed using budget reconciliation rules.
> Budget reconciliation is a special parliamentary procedure of the United States Congress set up to expedite the passage of certain federal budget legislation in the Senate. The procedure overrides the Senate's filibuster rules, which may otherwise require a 60-vote supermajority for passage. Bills described as reconciliation bills can pass the Senate by a simple majority of 51 votes or 50 votes plus the vice president's as the tie-breaker
https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States...
Using budget reconciliation rules automatically set a sunset date for the tax cuts, after which they would automatically expire.
When the tax cuts should have automatically expired at the end of 2010, the Democrats controlled the House, Senate and White House. Despite frequent claims over the decade that tax cuts for the rich were morally reprehensible, the Democrats did not allow the tax cuts to automatically expire, extending them for two years in the lame duck session of Congress, and then most were made permanent two years later before they should have expired again.
Isn't that the opposite of "undoing legislation"?
The main change at the border is a larger number of migrants. Migration trends are up globally, for a variety of reasons including climate change.
The GOP has controlled the government mulitple times since ACA passed. That nothing was done shows it's a talking point.
Legislation is hard to overturn. Executive actions, less so.
But yeah a lot of things end up being campaign talking points. Like Obama saying they'd enshrine abortion rights into law and uh didn't.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/07/27/539907467/senate-careens-towa...
[2]: https://ballotpedia.org/Timeline_of_ACA_repeal_and_replace_e...
To underscore this, the IRS is not an independent agency [1], but a bureau of the Treasury.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_Un...
The inflation reduction act directed the IRS to perform a study on Direct eFile. Implementing an actual pilot and then expanding to a permanent tool was based solely on executive authority, so either congress or the president could choose to scrap the program in the future.
> Inflation Reduction Act §10301(1)(B) TASK FORCE TO DESIGN AN IRS-RUN FREE ‘‘DIRECT EFILE’’ TAX RETURN SYSTEM.—For necessary expenses of the Internal Revenue Service to deliver to Congress, within nine months following the date of the enactment of this Act, a report on (I) the cost (including options for differen- tial coverage based on taxpayer adjusted gross income and return complexity) of developing and running a free direct efile tax return system, including costs to build and admin- ister each release, with a focus on multi-lingual and mobile- friendly features and safeguards for taxpayer data; (II) taxpayer opinions, expectations, and level of trust, based on surveys, for such a free direct efile system; and (III) the opinions of an independent third-party on the overall feasibility, approach, schedule, cost, organizational design, and Internal Revenue Service capacity to deliver such a direct efile tax return system, $15,000,000, to remain avail- able until September 30, 2023: Provided, That these amounts shall be in addition to amounts otherwise avail- able for such purposes
That's the Grover Norquist (and Republican) argument for not having IRS Direct File to begin with: if filing taxes becomes easy, people might not hate the IRS and hate taxes.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax...
Because if they did, they'd know that filing taxes for low income people with kids is a HUGE bonanza, and they'd work like hell to implement a system where all tax credits were applied to individual paychecks, not lump sums during tax season. It's the one time of the year when their pockets are flush with cash.
I like preparing and paying my taxes.
> The IRS should have to declare what they think you owe before you pay or submit any paperwork
Agree.