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Comment by ineptech | Hacker News Reader

I understand you're arguing this, I'm asking where this meme came from. Independent agencies have been around for more than a century and AFAICT the idea that there's something constitutionally unsavory about them is very new. Whence came this idea? Is it something you personally invented that the rest of the right doesn't subscribe to, or are others advocating it, and if so could you refer me to what arguments they're using to justify it?

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I haven't seen arguments that they're constitutionally unsavory, but I've seen arguments, that the President, as chief executive, does have almost CEO-like control over them. FDR did exert such control, in his case using it to expand the federal government, but he ran a fast-moving government.

So it's not like there isn't precedent for this, it's just that the consensus was as you said, the independent (some would say unelected) bureaucracy running things. But that was only ever a convention.

In most cases the law that created the agency spells out exactly what control the president has, and AFAIK presidents still have to follow the law like everyone else. Is there any real justification for this, beyond the general notion that FDR once got away with something similar so maybe Trump should too?

> AFAICT the idea that there's something constitutionally unsavory about them is very new.

I don't think anyone's claiming that they're "unsavory" - just that they are creatures of the executive that were created by the executive and may be abolished by the executive as well.

And I don't think it's a new position either? The Ron Paul types have been complaining about them for literally decades.

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