If you thought the President ran the executive department . . .

[Mark Milton]

Eh. Most, if not all of what Trump is doing limits the power of government. Take his Ukraine plan as an example. If that works out, American commercial interests will be at the forefront, not government.

Taking the bureaucracy from no or passive management to active aggressive management is not seizing power. It’s just exercising power that is there. The issue about government software I think is a canary in the coal mine signal of how piss poor government management has been.

Don’t have time to get into Obama.

So just a reallocation then.......

 

[Bowlmania]

I guess that would be the both eyes shut viewpoint.

The reality is, even under your hypothetical, Trump isn't limiting expansion of the federal government--he's consolidating it into one person/one branch--his. Whatever label you want to put on Trump is irrelevant. What is relevant is what he is doing. He isn't doing this because he is some benevolent guy.

What's odd is that you took a completely opposite position when Obama issued executive orders.....

Remember the words of JFK where he talked about thinking he would have power in the house of representatives, and he didn't. So he ran for senate and thought he'd have power--then discovered he he didn't. When he was elected president he thought "well now I will have power", and he discovered he didn't and thought about it and said I get it now.

We'll be hearing quite a bit about the unitary executive theory in the coming months.

The Supreme Court will be making some big calls that will have an enormous impact on the direction of this presidency - - - - and the country.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/unitary-executive-theory-may-reach-supreme-court-trump-wields-sweeping-power-2025-02-14/

 

[iuwclurker]

. . . You would be wrong.

Yesterday, Judge Alikhan decided she can supersede the executive decisions of a President if she determines said decisions are “irrational or imprudent”. In other words, Presidential discretionary decisions are subject to whether a federal judge would agree. The judge did not rule based upon such mundane constitutional standards such as due process, scope of presidential authority, or the commerce clause. No she went to a new and broader standard of whether she thought the presidential decision was prudent or irrational. She used her personal political views, expressed as being rational and prudent to overrule the President. At issue was Trumps spending pause.

Oh, here she is denying she would use her personal beliefs to decide cases.

View embedded media

See

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-administration-news-02-25-25?Date=20250225&Profile=cnnbrk&utm_content=1740515906&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#cm7ksr5as00003b6qo37x2dw3

Selective outrage. As if the Executive Branch never usurped the power of the other two branches.

My definition of Great America includes a balance of power among the three branches.

 

[Mark Milton]

We'll be hearing quite a bit about the unitary executive theory in the coming months.

The Supreme Court will be making some big calls that will have an enormous impact on the direction of this presidency - - - - and the country.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/unitary-executive-theory-may-reach-supreme-court-trump-wields-sweeping-power-2025-02-14/

They are 100% going to look at this issue, but I would imagine that the Supremes are looking for the perfect case to make a ruling.

 

[iuwclurker]

I get that it's a point of pride for you.

Ego Man takes pride in being mean.

 

[Mark Milton]

We know the judge thwarted an EO using a standard not applicable to an EO.

She obviously wrote a result oriented opinion. No way to know what the government argued. The case is not about an organic OMB action.

90% of executive orders are not self-executing, which means an agency must do so. Surely you know that an Agency's actions would also be subject to judicial review. It would behoove you to read the entire opinion

 

[hoot1]

Yes.

Of course they are limited. The powers of the whole of government are limited. The problem is that too many, both inside and out Of government, and in every branch, believe the federal government has unlimited power to govern. It most definitely does not. But those in power are constantly pushing the limits and sadly many people actually want that. This notion necessarily affects how we look at the powers of the president.

Now along comes Trump who is taking significant measures to limit that expansion and curtail the power scope and authority of the federal government and many call him a dictator.

Sigh.

CoH, on the subject of government power, IMO the Pubs lean in the direction of the state's having more power.

Furthermore with the current Supremes being inclined to award the state's more power (as in the abortion decision), and with a majority of the state legislatures being Republican, the power of government has shifted to more power for the Pubs.

On top of that, there is the subject of implied Presidential powers. Powers which can be interpreted by the Supremes as not being spelled out in the Constitution but implied Presidential power.

Buckle up America, the Republicans are holding the power in all the right places.

 

[Aloha Hoosier]

Because it's havoc and chaos. Top down nanomanging is the bane of every person that's ever worked in a large organization. Firing every single probationary employee in the govt is not the action of someone serious about efficiency. They are just looking for skulls and quick wins to post onto X


GAO puts out reports annually for actual waste, fraud and abuse. DOGE hasn't even bothered to talk with them.

After the election when they started talking about what Muck and DOGE were going to do, I immediately thought that they'd partner up with GAO. It's the obviously logical thing to do. GAO's website has a lot of great reports about this stuff that would be very helpful to anyone really looking to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse, and GAO personnel are experts at finding it. Sadly, Congress and administrations aren't experts at doing a lot about what GAO finds. It's incredible that DOGE hasn't bothered to work with GAO.

U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO)

GAO provides fact-based, nonpartisan information to Congress. Often called the "congressional watchdog," GAO investigates federal spending and performance.

www.gao.gov

 

[Bowlmania]

They are 100% going to look at this issue, but I would imagine that the Supremes are looking for the perfect case to make a ruling.

The case that the Trump administration wants overturned (and this was articulated in Project 2025) is Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In that 1935 decision, the Court held that the President (then FDR) does not have unfettered power to fire independent agency heads.

There is already a case in the pipeline that will likely bring this to a head, no pun intended. Wilcox v. Trump addresses Trump’s firing, without cause, of NLRB board member Gwen Wilcox. I predict this will go all the way up.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

When should we talk about the grift Elon is pulling with Starlink? He canceled the verizon contract with the FAA and said "nah, we gotta get starlink in here to fix this. Who would have guessed that would happen? An egregious conflict of interest.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Actually Musk and his whiz kids didn't do shit. The GAO already prepared a report in 2024, taking data that existed as of fiscal year 2021.

Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings

Federal agencies buy thousands of software licenses annually. Across the 24 agencies we examined, 10 vendors accounted for the majority of the most...

www.gao.gov

It is a little more complicated than what you think, and not quite exactly what you are saying

You can’t make this stuff up. Every one of the many GAO recommendations should have already been SOP. That’s the problem. I wonder how long it took the GAO to do this study and what it cost. The report is the problem not the solution.

People thought rocket science was complicated; until Musk’s Merlin engine and the Falcon Rocket. Boeing, Lockheed, or NASA couldn’t do what he did.

Complications come from group-think, bureaucracy, and lack of creativity and responsibility.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

CoH, on the subject of government power, IMO the Pubs lean in the direction of the state's having more power.

States have all the power now. (10th Amendment). The only limit is federal preemption and the 14th Amendment. Most on the left don’t understand these basics.

Furthermore with the current Supremes being inclined to award the state's more power (as in the abortion decision), and with a majority of the state legislatures being Republican, the power of government has shifted to more power for the Pubs.

Is democracy a problem here?

On top of that, there is the subject of implied Presidential powers. Powers which can be interpreted by the Supremes as not being spelled out in the Constitution but implied Presidential power.

The doctrine of implied power is only an assist to carry out express power. It doesn’t expand express powers.

Buckle up America, the Republicans are holding the power in all the right places.

Common sense rules.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

90% of executive orders are not self-executing, which means an agency must do so. Surely you know that an Agency's actions would also be subject to judicial review. It would behoove you to read the entire opinion

EO’s only apply to agencies instrumentalities, and departments of the federal government.

Saying EO’s are not self executing is like saying Brown v Board of education isn’t self executing. It takes the DOJ and local school boards to make it effective. Usinfg the APA to thwart an EO because an agency obeys it is crazy.

But I agree, there is an issue if an agency exceeds the parameters of the EO.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

You can’t make this stuff up. Every one of the many GAO recommendations should have already been SOP. That’s the problem. I wonder how long it took the GAO to do this study and what it cost. The report is the problem not the solution.

People thought rocket science was complicated; until Musk’s Merlin engine and the Falcon Rocket. Boeing, Lockheed, or NASA couldn’t do what he did.

Complications come from group-think, bureaucracy, and lack of creativity and responsibility.

Can you tell us exactly how much has been saved by Musk through this software issue? He found the same problem the GAO already found, hardly Mt Rushmore material. So for him to get credit, was he able to return software to vendors for a credit?

 

[Mark Milton]

Can you tell us exactly how much has been saved by Musk through this software issue? He found the same problem the GAO already found, hardly Mt Rushmore material. So for him to get credit, was he able to return software to vendors for a credit?

He didn't find diddly. He just read the report. I have no doubt that he wouldn't have the time or the inclination but got his hands on the GAO report without knowing a lick about what was implemented or not.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

Can you tell us exactly how much has been saved by Musk through this software issue? He found the same problem the GAO already found, hardly Mt Rushmore material. So for him to get credit, was he able to return software to vendors for a credit?

He didn't find diddly. He just read the report. I have no doubt that he wouldn't have the time or the inclination but got his hands on the GAO report without knowing a lick about what was implemented or not.

You guys are barking up the wrong tree.

The issue with the software is that it happens, and I bet that is not the only example of non-existent, lax, or loosey-goosey government management of its own operations. Moreover, there now won’t be any “should take action” type of commands like in the GAO report. The message needs to be fix the problem or find another job.

 

[hoot1]

States have all the power now. (10th Amendment). The only limit is federal preemption and the 14th Amendment. Most on the left don’t understand these basics.


Is democracy a problem here?


The doctrine of implied power is only an assist to carry out express power. It doesn’t expand express powers.


Common sense rules.

On the subject of common sense rules, it can be mentioned people exercise common sense by simplifying complex issues into simple phrases and solutions.

For example, my business partner simplified his take on politics by quoting his father who once said, "Democrats want to give people a hand out, and Repulicans want to give them a hand up".

Guess my hope for our future is common sense to a large extent will be replaced by AI given our future requires solving some very complex problems (I.e. global warming and the federal debt crisis).