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Comment by digitaltrees | Hacker News Reader

It’s not far away from dying. I would argue that it’s already too late. The trump administration has shown that it can seize the power to control spending which is constitutionally an exclusive power if congress and courts can’t and won’t do anything about it. We are past a constitutional crisis, republicans had a theory of a unitary executive and prove they can stream roll other branches. Now trump and others are talking about a third term. They play it off as a joke but that’s how they have succeeded in moving the goal posts already.

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The US spent the last hundred years shifting power from congress to the president, because nobody in congress wanted the blame for any decisions and be either primaried, or lose the election. Trump isn't seizing power, he's just using the power voluntarily given to him. American democracy wasn't ended by a revolution, it was ended by lawfully elected cowards.

No. He is seizing it explicitly as laid out in project 2025. There is an explicit theory of a unitary executive that they say give him power. But they also mapped out the levers of power, control and possible resistance and are systematically and aggressively going after them. I would also point out that the American people didn’t vote for this because trump explicitly denied he would follow project 2025, and yet is implementing every detail down to the letter.

Here are some new concrete developments that I doubt the founders of the democracy would say are fine:

- the Executive Branch now has presumptive - if not absolute - immunity against all criminal official acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States_%282024...

- universities must obey Trump's culture war agenda, otherwise they will be de-accredited and a fine equal to the value of the entire university endowment will be leveraged - https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump-vows-to-seize-endowm...

- President-elect Donald Trump and his top advisers have long cited impoundment, a little-known legal theory [... that] essentially claims that any president has unilateral authority to ignore Congress’s funding bills and withhold or “impound” funds meant for programs, agencies, or departments deemed unsuitable by the White House. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3244202/...

> otherwise they will be de-accredited

Who decides the ultimate authority on accreditation anyway?

Why can't we just start a new trust network?

Impoundment, or rather the idea that it is an issue, is a weird concept in general. Congress legislates executive directives that should be acted upon and provides a budget. They don't say "spend every dollar we give" and they rarely define metrics for success to know if the executive branch is meeting their goals.

The fact that the Trump administration is able to so easily chest the game and roll back agencies is a side effect of congress writing thousands of pages of legislation without ever bothering to define precisely what is expected of the executive branch.

No, this is quite wrong. It is well understood in American law that "spend every dollar we give" is exactly what the budget approved by Congress means. It is then the duty of the executive branch to do so in an effective manner.

Laws shouldn't need to go into details on exactly how every last dollar is to be spent, they set the amount and the goals, and the executive exists to handle the details.

The problem is that the Trump administration is ignoring the laws they don't like. They're even trying to ignore a very explicit constitutional amendment (birthright citizenship). Writing more detailed laws would do nothing to make the Trump team follow the law.

A lot of people don’t like that “regulation” has been delegated to unelected agencies instead of having congress make laws.

Is the current structure of agencies with delegated regulatory powers specified in the constitution? I don’t think so. It isn’t explicitly forbidden, but it’s not like it’s what the founders had in mind or wrote down.

The current administration’s approach is activist in the sense that it would be more direct to just outlaw the current structure via congress. I suspect that isn’t possible at the moment due to the entanglement of corporate interests, regulatory agencies and lobbying money.

Activist action isn’t exactly new though. Maybe it hasn’t happened on the right wing as much in America in living memory, it feels like they felt like they were above it for a long time. They don’t feel like that anymore.

What "many people" don't like about this system is just how effective it is at regulating their businesses. The alternative - that the 535 members of Congress should regulate every detail of every facet of federal life - is completely untenable.

The reality is that Congress has been effectively neutralized as a law making institution for at least two decades, barely able to do more than pass the budget and one or two big items per election cycle. The dream of people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and all the others is that the executive state will be similarly neutered, unable to effectively regulate any kind of big business interests.

The vast majority of the American people neither knows nor cares about the difference between a law that Congress passed and a regulation enacted by an agency of the executive (or between those and state lawd or even city regulations, much of the time). They care whether those rules are useful or detrimental to them. This is why agencies like the CFPB, that Musk and Trump have essentially dismantled (much to Mark Andreesen's delight, I'm sure) was extremely popular: normal people could see how it helped them or their friends. They didn't care that it was pursuing regulations not directly codified by Congress.

Said differently, most people don't care about principles.

The government is designed based on certain principles that define how it is meant to work, and there's a reasonable case to be made that the executive branch should not have the authority to functionally create laws or run their own courts. That just doesn't matter to most people, as you said they're happy if those regulations work for them.

The same situation pops up in most peoples' political views too. Most people pick a view on a topic rather than an underlying principle, ending up with contradictory views.

My father-in-law will talk a lot about older Republican talking points like smaller governments and individual rights and freedoms. Then abortion comes up and he wants governments to create laws telling people what they can or can't do with their body, or social security comes up and he's strongly in favor of more taxes and welfare/entitlement programs.

I do agree that people rarely truly care about the principles they claim they adhere to, when it turns against their own interests.

But that is not what is happening here. A principle is not self-motivatingly good just because it exists. The principle that Congress must directly make every law and set every detail of that law is simply a bad principle, at least for a country of the size and complexity of the USA, and given the last 200 years of experience in good and bad governance.

Congress has long understood this, and so they have invested some of their legislative power into various executive agencies, while still maintaining a great degree of control over the broad strokes of what those agencies do.

It's not useful to anyone for Congress to, say, debate and set the exact safe level of every chemical known to man in water that should be enforced: the EPA exists to study this and take the right measures based on the most reasonable scientific knowledge of the day. If the CDC discovers that exposure to teflon above 1 part in 100,000 is likely to cause significant harm, it shouldn't be regulated only once Congress meets in the next session.

> But that is not what is happening here. A principle is not self-motivatingly good just because it exists.

The principle I was referring to is that the legislative branch creates law and the executive branch only only administers and executes on them.

I agree a principle is neither good or bad on its own, it just is. In this case it isn't good or bad that powers are separated this way, but it is foundational to how our government is designed.

Congress doesn't have to spell out every detail, I made that clear though maybe in a separate chain of comments here. They do, though, need to spell out whatever details are important to them. If all congress cares about is that a department exists with a certain name and spends every dollar of a given budget that's fine, but they can't complain at all about what the department does. In reality they should be spelling out fairly clearly what is expected of a department, in my opinion that would include metrics for success.

I'd be very curious where in our laws it is written that congressional budgets must be spent in their entirety every year. I could just be wrong here, happy to learn something new.

> Laws shouldn't need to go into details on exactly how every last dollar is to be spent.

Laws should go into every detail that matters to those writing it. If all they care about is that the money is spent and that there's an agency with a certain name and one line mandate, sure that's all they need to specify. If the legislators cafe about what is or is not done, or if they care about any specific metrics of success, those should be codified in the law to make the intention and expectation clear.

Birthright citizenship and immigration is a whole other can of worms. We can go there but it's pretty off topic here.

Too bad the Chevron doctrine was ditched then. Now Congress has to specify everything, maybe? Who knows? I think that uncertainty is the point thought. The Judges Nine have a project 2025, too.

> I'd be very curious where in our laws it is written that congressional budgets must be spent in their entirety every year

It's included in the "CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET AND IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL ACT OF 1974"[0], Title X, at least as a base assumption. It's also part of the text of the annual appropriations bill(s), on most subjects.

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-10356/uslm/COMPS-1...

The Impoundment Control Act isn't as simple as "every dollar appropriated must be spent."

It defines how a President must notify congress to request a reduction in appropriated budget. That request is expected to contain a full accounting if expected financial impacts and reasons for the changes requested. Congress then has 45 days to respond, without congressional approval the request is considered denied.

What they are doing today could fall into a discovery period in which they're still collecting information to make a proper impoundment request. Whether they're actually acting in good faith there is yet to be seen, but they woould have to be allowed to look into and audit departments before being able to clearly lay out how much of the budget is waste and precisely why the reduction wouldn't impeded the departments from meeting their legal obligations.

The impoundment control act makes it clear that, by default, the President must spend all the money as appropriated by Congress. The president can ask Congress for a dispensation from this base requirement, and Congress can deny it, going back to the president being forced to spend the money.

Note that this law was created specifically because Nixon had gotten into the habit of not spending money as apportioned by Congress if he didn't like the specific programs. So, Congress made laws to specifically not allow Presidents to do this on a whim.

And it is obviously false that funding must be paused in order to understand what the money is being spent on and identify waste. Both companies and government agencies routinely undergo extremely thorough audits without having to pause their activity. "I have a suspicion based on no proof whatsoever that waste might be happening, let's stop activity entirely while I search for the proof I don't have for this unmotivated belief" is not and can't be a good faith position.

> Note that this law was created specifically because Nixon had gotten into the habit of not spending money as apportioned by Congress if he didn't like the specific programs. So, Congress made laws to specifically not allow Presidents to do this on a whim.

This is a little bit misleading, By the time the Impoundment Control Act was passed, the Nixon Administration had been hit by a flurry of lawsuits on impoundment, lost most of them at the trial level, and given up immediately and released the funds at issue in those cases. (There was one case they continued fighting up to the Supreme Court and lost 9-0 after the ICA passed, but not based on the ICA, just pre-existing law; there was also Supreme Court precedent going back to the 19th Century with the same conclusion -- the President has no authority to impound funds Congress has directed must be spent.)

The ICA was basically an olive branch -- it provides a method in law for the President to temporarily hold appropriated funds and request recission, specifying that the funds had to be released if, in 45 session days, Congress didn't affirmatively act on the recission request; this was an effort to provide a mechanism to address the problems that the unambiguously illegal attempts at impoundment were notionally motivated by. It wasn't to prohibit impoundment -- the existing laws directing expending funds already did that inherently.

Trump is continuing a trend that has been going on since at least Bush Jr. Presidents for a couple decades now have been moving more power into the executive branch.

Obama and Biden both talked about undoing this, but neither did. The Patriot Act still exists, three letter agencies still have authority to spy on American citizens, and immigration laws still defy what's written on the Statue of Liberty (I think most have forgotten how harsh Obama was on southern immigration).

False equivalence.

Tell me more.

It is not the same and sides are not the same.

Since Woodrow Wilson.

The Dangerous History Podcast has a very interesting series in Wilson. The host was not a fan.

I'm going to give it a listen, thanks. I found this funny and interesting interview with the host, safe to say, you're right he's not a fan! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usXS9ciS0gs

With a slight pause in the post-watergate era when Jimmy Carter was president.

... which has been allowed and caused by the Republican congressional obstructionism going on since the 90's. Bush, Obama, and Biden could have reduced their own use of executive power, but they couldn't undo it - rather it was Congress that would have had to reign them in and shrink executive power. Just as the current Congress is ultimately allowing Trump's ongoing authoritarian power grabs, rather than passing laws and impeaching.

For another example, take the frequent neofascist argument that the federal agencies are "unaccountable" unless they are under the direct command of the President. No, the agencies were created by Congress, and have always been accountable to Congress. But Congress has not been doing its job, which is why they seem unaccountable.

> No, the agencies were created by congress, and have always been accountable to Congress. But Congress hasn't been doing its job, which is why they seem unaccountable.

If Congress hasn't been doing its job, then they don't just seem unaccountable, they actually are.

The levers of accountability could have been pulled any time, so it stands to say that they were still accountable. Perhaps they weren't held accountable as much as you or I would have liked. But the authority was there.

But either way I don't really see what greater point you're trying to make.

Just that there is no practical difference between "seeming unaccountable" and "being unaccountable", especially if, as you say, "the levers of accountability could have been pulled", but weren't. If the departments aren't being held accountable, they are, by definition, acting unaccountably.

You seemed to disagree, and be trying to make a distinction where no practical difference can be found. You also seem to agree that they haven't been held accountable, which makes this apparent distinction even less coherent! This kind of just comes across as contrarian, or perhaps sophistry to avoid agreeing with an apparent opponent?

> but weren't

Does that imply unaccountable, or does it mean Congress thought they were doing a good job?

Exactly this. People say "unaccountable" but the follow up question is "for what?".

The misinformation era means there's a gulf of frequently incorrect assumptions about what the Federal agencies actually do.

Again, if these agencies are never actually held accountable, this is functionally identical to "unaccountable".

I mean, what if Congress created them to be unaccountable? Then both things would be true!

Are you claiming the fbi has never been called to testify before Congress? or are you claiming that it didn't happen enough? or that it didn't happen for the things you personally wanted it to happen over?

these are very different situations, and it appears you wish to defend the motte and get the bailey for free?

No? I wouldn't consider the FBI to be an "unaccountable organization".

I never said all government organizations are unaccountable? Just that (practically-speaking) some organizations are unaccountable because they rarely (or never) are called to account by those who are supposed to hold them accountable. This could be due to them simply being a low-stakes organization that demands very little attention, for all I know!

Interesting that you call out a specific fallacy whilst bringing your own strawman into play!

The distinction is precisely in what criteria they're held accountable for, in the context of politics with many differing interests. Your cry about "being unaccountable" pertains to what you personally think they need to have been directed to do but weren't.

The mechanism is there. If Congress is not passing new legislation to change agency actions, that de facto means that Congress is content with the current actions. They have been accountable to Congress, and Congress has been content to let them keep doing what they're doing.

I don't think this is mutually-exclusive to what I'm saying?

It's equally plausible that the reason Congress has not called an organization to account is simply because that organization is beneath Congress' notice. Congress has as incredibly broad mandate, and necessarily prioritizes. This means some organizations are simply not enough of a priority to warrant any attention.

It is in this dearth of attention that waste can thrive!

> For another example, take the frequent neofascist argument that the federal agencies are "unaccountable" without being under the direct command of the President

It’s not “neofascist” lol, it’s just what the constitution says. The first sentence of article II: “ The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

It’s not Congress’s job to hold executive branch employees accountable any more than it’s Congress’s job to hold judicial law clerks in the courts accountable. It’s the President’s job, in whom the executive power is vested.

That’s also reflected in the appointments clause. Anyone with discretionary authority must be either appointed by the president, or report to someone who is: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1434_ancf.pdf. The whole point is to make the executive branch highly responsive to Presidenfial elections.

Congress is supposed to hold both employees and departments accountable. Employees are held accountable via the advise and consent power so that the leadership of departments isn't beholden to the executive. Departments are held accountable by the budget process, don't do a good job, don't get appropriations. The executive power is merely administrative and logistical.

The executive power, as being laid out in the Constitution. Not all executive power. This is plainly clear by appointments requiring approval of the Senate. If the "executive branch" were meant to be a singular top-down command structure, then such approval (or ability to impeach) would not be required. This push for an authoritarian command structure is one pillar of what makes the term "fascist" appropriate.

I was not talking about the accountability of individual employees according to the law. The accountability I was talking about was the mandate for an agency. That was set by Congress when they created the agency, and can thus be clarified or changed by Congress at any time.

“The executive power” means “all the executive power,” in the same way “the judicial power” in Article III means “all the judicial power.” Or do you think the other branches can properly exercise some judicial power? Advice-and-consent isn’t an exercise of executive power, it’s a check on executive power, just like impeachment.

Sure, Congress can change or clarify the mandate of an agency, and the President must go along with that. But what we’re talking about with Trump is accountability for individual employees and the discretionary conduct of executive branch employees.

For example, Congress has appropriated $1.7 billion for USAID operations, “for purposes of the carrying out the 1961 foreign development act” (paraphrasing). I agree the executive must ultimately spend that money within the broad mandate of the appropriation. But do you spend that money on DEI in Serbia or pro-natalism in South Korea? Clearly the President should be able to decide that.

Ummm no? The president is not tasked with those decisions , those are the purview of congress who should be pulling to make those expenditures benefit their constituents as may be possible..

Congress does not decide how to make individual grants.

Congress often specifies the criteria by which grants are made, qualifications and funding priorities. Sometimes these can be very specific, eg "earmarks".

Sometimes they do. But often they do not. Look at the appropriations bill for USAID: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8771....

> UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT > Funds Appropriated To The President

> For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of section 667 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, $1,214,808,000 (increased by $5,000,000) (reduced by $5,000,000), of which up to $182,221,000 may remain available until September 30, 2026

Section 667 of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act just says the money is for “operating expenses” for administering the Act. Who decides how to spend that $1.2 billion?

You're focused on the money while ignoring the actual motivating legislation of the original Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. From a quick scan:

> Under the policy guidance of the Secretary of State, the agency primarily responsible for administering this part should have the responsibility for coordinating all United States development-related activities

"Guidance". Not direct command. The primary criteria of the agency is to carry out what Congress directed by making the Act. If I'm following your argument in this thread, you mean to say that doing so requires execution, is thus executive power, thus putting it under the full command of the President.

> SEC. 104A. ø22 U.S.C. 2151b–2¿ ASSISTANCE TO COMBAT HIV/AIDS.

DEI is a bit of a straw man, but there is an entire section on HIV/AIDS! That's a goal spelled out by Congress, which is meant to be executed independent from the desires of a would be president-king. Obviously the executive has leeway in how to interpret the grey areas ("guidance"), but the wholesale disruption/pausing/scrapping is illegal.

It's truly a travesty because the Republicans control both houses of Congress! They could easily pass legislation suspending USAID, and/or legislation for widespread audits of agencies culminating in DOGE. But they haven't.

Yes, there’s a whole section on HIV/AIDS, and PEPFAR was quickly resumed! https://za.usembassy.gov/presidents-emergency-plan-for-aids-...

A temporary pause seems squarely within what the executive is allowed to do.

Are you arguing that only Republicans have controlled Congress singe Bush Jr was in office? Or that Congress held primary decision making authority behind the number of executive orders signed by presidents since then?

> Are you arguing that only Republicans have controlled Congress singe Bush Jr was in office?

Republicans have been able to stop congress from doing anything they didn't like since... 2010.

They can't even get their shit together to pass legislature when they control congress, but they've always been able to prevent it from passing legislature, or exercising oversight. Just like they are doing right now.

Both sides have been able to stop congress if I'm not mistaken (I don't think we've had a super majority for a while now).

The republicans have been more willing to pull that lever, but the system is designed such that its a perfectly legal lever to pull.

No and no. I'm referring to Gingrich's attitude of never crossing the aisle leading to Congressional gridlock. And how a functioning Congress could have easily passed laws nullifying most executive orders (especially the ones grabbing extra power). It was precisely the power vacuum of Congress that enabled the strong executive.

Anyone in congress can cross the aisle though, the hesitation to do so isn't unique.

I do agree though that inept congresses has allowed the executive branch to act so powerfully. My only caveat is that congress first had to give those powers to the executive such that they could eventually be abused. Earlier congresses didn't have to choose to empower the executive branch with so much authority.

The ability wasn't unique, but how much it was used as part of an deliberate overall strategy was. Even recently, half of the introspection articles for why the democrats lost the election are asking how they can compromise with republicans more.

I don't really buy the argument the argument that earlier congresses should have foreseen their future inability to pass new legislation and done more to preemptively restrict how the executive could have abused general mandates. Passing highly specific fine grained laws would have been ineffective, both in the work required to foresee and draft all the specifics, and also having a few words changed here and there by lobbyists, completely undermining the intent. Congress could have delegated rule making to some sort of sub-legislative body rather than interpretation by the executive, but as I said that would have required them to foresee the gridlock that would leave them unable to clarify. Also, the possibility of having an outright-hostile-to-America-as-they-understand-it executive would have been pretty foreign to them.

>Trump is continuing a trend that has been going on since at least Bush Jr. Presidents for a couple decades now have been moving more power into the executive branch.

Are you familiar with the constitution? It describes which powers belong to the executive and which don't.

The US is a strong federative country. Individual states are almost literally _states_ (as in "country") and have a lot of power. They can impose their own carbon taxes, net neutrality rules, fund research, etc.

And more importantly, their local democracy is going strong.

States have "power", but not money. There are no state level science grants anywhere at the scale of the linked article.

CA spends around $11B on the University of California system. The NIH budget is $47B. I haven't done the math, but I would hazard that the total amount of money spent on science by the Federal and the individual state authorities would be comparable.

It's just that historically the Federal government was leading with the fundamental research, but if push comes to shove, states can start spinning up replacement programs.

Isn't CA a particularly rich state and not a good example of what states are capable of doing when compared to the federal government?

I foresee three big challenges to funding science at the state level.

Shifting to state-level funding would require states to independently raise new taxes. Each state would have to work within the constraints of its state level constitution for levying that tax. Research would no longer be pork. This seems politically difficult.

States would have to either coordinate on which grants to fund or accept a siloed, fragmented system. That seems inefficient.

Institutes at lower-income states would not be subsidized by higher-income states and fail. That seems wasteful.

All that said, it might be the only alternative.

> Each state would have to work within the constraints of its state level constitution for levying that tax.

Interstate compacts exist. For example, states can make an agreement that a company can receive grant funds only if it's incorporated in a state that spends a certain percentage of the budget on scientific research.

San-Francisco (in a ham-fisted way) tried to do something similar, by prohibiting city-sponsored contracts with companies in states that restrict abortion.

> Interstate compacts exist.

Not without positive action by Congress they don't. (US Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 10.)

As I replied in another message:

That's not quite correct. The judicial practice in the US is that the intestate compacts (agreements) require Congressional authorization only if they infringe on the sovereign Federal powers.

One good example for the 2nd Amendment lovers: states are free to make reciprocal agreements with other states for concealed carry permits. It doesn't require any authorization from the Congress.

Another example are the laws for taxation of multi-state corporations that the neighboring states can negotiate together.

Running a university and administering research grants aren't remotely the same thing. Does any of that $11B go to fund science?

California spends $4.7B in general fund revenue on the UC system. Tuition is a bit more than that, but it’s paid by students for their personal benefit so you can’t just repurpose it because some billionaires want tax cuts.

https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4862

That covers everything from paving roads and mowing grass to paying for their pension system and monitoring for wildfires, so the proportional increase for research funding would be even larger than it sounds because federal funding has been the backbone for that since WWII.

While you’d be looking at a significant increase in tax demand for them it’d be much worse for almost everyone else because California is also the richest state in the country, almost twice as rich as the second (Texas). There’s no way that isn’t a bloodbath for American science.

> And more importantly, their local democracy is going strong.

I guess you never heard of gerrymandering.

To your parent comment's point, this varies a lot by state!

Enough to control the House.

Except that the states have no power because an unchecked executive branch can just claim that it had authority and the states have no recourse to resist.

The US has an incredibly weak form of government.

Don't get so depressed. The Executive branch in the US does not have a lot of power when it comes to influencing the states.

For example, Trump can't actually force states to change their school athlete programs. It doesn't have any power over individual states (or schools). All his DoE can do, is to threaten to withhold funding. And even that is being contested because the Congress has not authorized it.

However, if he does manage to withdraw the funding, that's just 6% of total spending on schools in CA ( https://lao.ca.gov/Education/EdBudget/Details/900 ) and 8% in NY. The states will just shrug and go on.

The discretionary part of the US Federal budget is not large, on the scale of the country.

Congress has authorized it: civil rights laws make schools ineligible when violated, and Trump is claiming various programs violate those.

And this is going to be contested through the courts for many years.

Are states exactly flush with cash to plug even small gaps in school budgets?

You mentioned CA which is rebuilding from massive fires, can they afford that?

What about Arizona, 2021 to 2022 19% of their schools budget was federal funding.

What happens if there is a natural disaster, Trump can withhold funds to force changes. Can a state turn down that level of assistance? They would have to prioritize recovery I assume and just accept the change.

>Don't get so depressed. The Executive branch in the US does not have a lot of power when it comes to influencing the states.

Money is power

> You mentioned CA which is rebuilding from massive fires, can they afford that?

Yes.

> What about Arizona, 2021 to 2022 19% of their schools budget was federal funding.

They are an outlier, but mostly because they spend so little: https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statisti...

> What happens if there is a natural disaster, Trump can withhold funds to force changes. Can a state turn down that level of assistance? They would have to prioritize recovery I assume and just accept the change.

But many sides can play this game once the can of worms is open.

The thing is, then the next Democratic president (or a Democratic House/Senate) happens and yet another hurricane flattens a part of Florida. What do you think the Florida delegation in the Congress will do when faced with a prospect of not getting help?

> Money is power

Indeed. And the Blue States have way more money than most of the Red states.

> yes

Can you explain why you think this?

The financial outlook isn't good, not terrible but still.

"No Capacity for New Commitments State Faces Annual Multiyear Deficits of Around $20b" [1]

>Indeed. And the Blue States have way more money than most of the Red states.

Based on what? Note that GDP doesn't represent available funds to state governments

>But many sides can play this game once the can of worms is open

Trump has already threatened this to California. Two days ago Newsom asked congress for $20b and ..

"Ric Grenell, a Trump ally serving as his envoy for special missions, said Friday that “there will be conditions” to any federal aid for the state.

He said one of the possible conditions being discussed was defunding the California Coastal Commission, which regulates coastal development and protects public beach access. Trump has criticized the agency as overly restrictive, bureaucratic and a hindrance to timely rebuilding efforts."

>What do you think the Florida delegation in the Congress will do when faced with a prospect of not getting help?

Why would you assume the Democrats would do that?

[1] https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4939#:~:text=The%20st...

> "No Capacity for New Commitments State Faces Annual Multiyear Deficits of Around $20b" [1]

The budget of California is $320B. This is more than the _entire_ discretionary budget of the US.

> "Ric Grenell, a Trump ally serving as his envoy for special missions, said Friday that “there will be conditions” to any federal aid for the state.

Yeah, these are public statements. I expect that there's frantic back-room dealing right now to make sure that the relief funds are not attached to any conditions. Because in the long-term, that will benefit the states that have money.

> Why would you assume the Democrats would do that?

Because the Democrats who are unwilling to play ball will not get re-elected. I'm not talking about this electoral cycle, this will take a bit more time. For Republicans, it took about 8 years to get from the Tea Party to MAGAs.

> Yeah, these are public statements. I expect that there's frantic back-room dealing right now to make sure that the relief funds are not attached to any conditions. Because in the long-term, that will benefit the states that have money.

I hope so but it also seems people keep thinking Republicans/Trump won't step over a line but end up doing it

>The budget of California is $320B. This is more than the _entire_ discretionary budget of the US.

It's 1.7T https://www.cbo.gov/publication/most-recent/graphics

> I hope so but it also seems people keep thinking Republicans/Trump won't step over a line but end up doing it

I'm sure they'll try. But I'm also sure that this practice of using relief funds as for political pressure won't stick, exactly because money is power.

> It's 1.7T https://www.cbo.gov/publication/most-recent/graphics

Thanks! I meant it in a bit different way: not Defense related, not International Affairs, and not law-enforcement/justice related. By my count, that's $330B.

And did you use the same exceptions to calculate the CA budget?

I doubt Democrats would threaten to yank hurricane relief funds.

Republicans would.

The shoe only fits on one foot.

Exactly. Look at how Hungary's Orban regime is slowly choking the last stronghold of any kind of political opposition, Budapest. It's a war of attrition.

And yet states aren't allowed to form alliances with other states according to Article 1 section 10. Sure, states might be able to fund research, but most states on their own aren't going to be able to afford to do this effectively - but if several states could band together to, say, keep funding climate science that might help keep us on track and keep scientists employed until better times come back. But they can't do that.

> And yet states aren't allowed to form alliances with other states

That's not quite correct. The judicial practice in the US is that the intestate compacts (agreements) require Congressional authorization only if they infringe on the sovereign Federal powers.

One good example for the 2nd Amendment lovers: states are free to make reciprocal agreements with other states for concealed carry permits. It doesn't require any authorization from the Congress.

Another example are the laws for taxation of multi-state corporations that the neighboring states can negotiate together.

States need a military to enforce their independence, but almost none have one of note. The National Guard is under the executive branch and state guards tend to be tiny (e.g. just 900 enlisted for CA).

Actually, in many cases they cannot.

Take a look at the EPA "exception" that California has needed in order to impose more stringent fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.

Many forms of commerce or communication that are relevant across state lines (net neutrality rules, etc.) are considered a federal prerogative and states have limited ability to control these.

Yes, states could do more to fund research--and hopefully they will--but no state has the same level of tax rate as the federal government, and while the NSF budget is "noise" in the federal budget ($10B/$1.7T discretionary) it would be quite a big outlay for most states, even for California it would represent 3%+ of the total state budget to reproduce.

Though, now that I look at that number, maybe it's actually an opportunity for CA...

> Take a look at the EPA "exception" that California has needed in order to impose more stringent fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.

Yet, WA now has a carbon tax for companies operating within its borders. And it was found constitutional by the SCOTUS.

> Many forms of commerce or communication that are relevant across state lines (net neutrality rules, etc.) are considered a federal prerogative and states have limited ability to control these.

The interstate agreements are allowed as long as they don't infringe on the sovereign Federal power.

And there are plenty of workarounds. For example, CA has these ridiculous agricultural inspection stations on freeways. They are legal because they don't technically deny you the freedom of movement, declining to submit to an inspection simply revokes your driving privilege in CA.

Unless states have their own sovereign militaries that do not and cannot answer to the federal government that is of minor importance.

1) The fact that the President embodies the executive branch is just what Article II says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The same people who say that’s “just a theory” also think that “emanations from penumbras” is constitutional law. They’re not serious people.

2) Trump hasn’t seized the spending power. Congress was the one that delegated spending power to the executive branch by appropriating multi-billion line items and directing the executive branch to spend the money with only the vaguest instructions. Live by the delegation sword die by the delegation sword.

1) While Article II says....it also depends on a checks and balance system with the other two branches of government. We've already seen where the congressional branch is laying down for the executive, and we've also seen where the judicial branch has granted immunity essentially giving carte blanche to the executive. Without equal branches providing checks and balances, you've just ceded power the Constitution requires. Any of the lower courts trying to hold on to any semblance of checks and balance will eventually be reversed once it reaches SCOTUS.

The system has specific, well-defined checks and balances. For example, Congress can limit the executive’s control over spending by enacting specific appropriations bills with concrete line items. But it hasn’t done so for decades. It has done things like appropriate single $1.7 billion line items for USAID, leaving it to the executive’s discretion how to spend it with only the vaguest guidelines. Congress having done that, it’s not for say the courts to “check” that by insisting that the executive can’t exercise all the discretion Congress provided it.

And your point about immunity is misinformed. The Supreme Court held that the President has immunity for official acts. This is a no-brainer. You can’t sue Congressmen for their official acts either, or judges.

If the President didn’t have immunity, Georgia prosecutors would be able to indict and convict Joe Biden in some red county in connection with the murder of Laken Riley, on the theory that Biden recklessly or negligently opened the border leading to her death.

> And your point about immunity is misinformed. The Supreme Court held that the President has immunity for official acts.

We'll have to agree to disagree here. You'll never convince me that a phone call from a candidate trying to convince someone to "find" extra votes is an official act of office. Nor is assembling a league of fake electors because the official ones will not bend the knee

Please read the Supreme Court’s decision. It didn’t say either of those actions was protected official acts. The Supreme Court remanded to the district out to figure out which were official acts and which were not: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

This was entirely Jack Smith’s bad lawyering. He chose to write an indictment that mixed together the acts you mention along with things like Trump’s instructions to DOJ officials.

No, but thanks to the Supreme Court, it will have to be litigated through to them for anyone to know for sure.

Neither point is accurate. The executive power doesn't include the ability to create a fake department (DOGE), with a fake head (Elon Musk), lie that he isnt running it in court, and then run roughshod over the regulations and laws congress passed around employment regulations.

You know what the constitution does require, advise and consent. Not a single thing elon musk is doing is legal and yet their are seizing the power to remake departments created and funded by congress. If you want to eliminate USAID or any other department have CONGRESS pass a law to make the change, anything else is a constitutional seizure of power.

The executive power doesn't include a concept such as impoundment, yet the trump administration seized $80mil of FEMA funds from the the city of new york bank account.

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