Whether or not you agree or disagree with the merits of USAID is beside the point. A single unelected and unqualified person must not be given the authority to dismantle a massive US government program.
elections have consequences. We have a representative democracy and administrative employees serve at the pleasure of the head of the administration. "shoulds" and "musts" only go as far as the political will to enforce them. The overwhelming majority of the electorate seems to care about how expensive their personal lifestyle is with various takes on individual liberty vs enforced morality used as wedge issues (neither party is consistently on one side or the other of this balance, fwiw.)
as an institutionalist myself, I agree with you that this is terrible governance.
They could have passed a law to shut down USAID, that would have been the proper, legal way to do this. They didn't. The executive legally can't do whatever they want, but the Republicans in the legislative simply stood by and cheered while the administration trampled over their legislative responsibilities and powers.
When it comes to government spending programs, according to our constitution the elections that have consequences are those for seats in Congress. The executive doesn’t have the authority to cancel USAIDs funding, nor the funding of specific programs within it.
On top of that, the executive has a responsibility to plan its work ahead of time and make such plans known before enacting them.
There are many cases currently in litigation regarding these failures.
i for one am pretty exhausted by "elections have consequences" being codeword for all previous rules systems norms obligations and institutions are totally ok to be thrown in the hopper. it's an exhausting and ridiculous shrug of the shoulder that in no way meets the moment, that is just the laziest "what can you do" nothing.
you'd hope that an internal insurrection against the United States would not be so ragingly popular. and part of the reason it's let slide, is so poorly seen as what it is is because of "elections have consequences". it's bad.
Seems unlikely to me. We even gave up on Trump's tax returns, and gave up the emoluments clause given that he is the CEO of a publicly traded company and has multiple cryptocurrency scams. This administration has plot armor. Feel free to fill in the reason as to "why"; my opinions would likely get me banned.
We’ll be reading about the crimes of dodge for years, similar to secrets of the CIA coming out in the 1970s. Wish politicians in US weren’t so spineless about going after them.
Its the curse of the two-party system. Politicians are not risking splitting from their party, because that would mean the end of their political career.
Hopefully the midterms results in massive investigations of Trump and everyone in his orbit, but if we get “we all need to come together” faux-centrism I wouldn’t be surprised.
We need to fully destroy the notion the DOJ isn’t independent, and make a number of changes that bring us back to having a modern country.
This type of strategy is almost the only way to get rid of these kinds of agencies. You'd end up with a million raodblocks being tossed up if you tried it any other way.
Right, because there shouldn't be any roadblocks when you're taking an action that has a high probability of resulting in hundreds of thousands of people dying.
Whether or not you agree or disagree with the merits of USAID is beside the point. A single unelected and unqualified person must not be given the authority to dismantle a massive US government program.
> A single unelected and unqualified person must not be given the authority to dismantle a massive US government program.
I'd honestly rather have someone hired for the purpose of doing such tasks than to have the result of any election doing it.
Did his actions exceed the authority granted to the executive branch which employed him?
Spending is supposed to be decided by congress not the executive branch so quite obviously yes.
Budget allocation, and managing authority are different things, though.
So that means congress exercised their authority to check and balance the executive and everything turned out ok?
If there's no record, was the executive really employing him?
When things get allegedly autopenned under Biden's administration: THE PRESIDENT'S AUTHORITY IS BEING HIJACKED!
When undocumented temporary-employee friends of Trump allies do whatever they want: This is fine.
elections have consequences. We have a representative democracy and administrative employees serve at the pleasure of the head of the administration. "shoulds" and "musts" only go as far as the political will to enforce them. The overwhelming majority of the electorate seems to care about how expensive their personal lifestyle is with various takes on individual liberty vs enforced morality used as wedge issues (neither party is consistently on one side or the other of this balance, fwiw.)
as an institutionalist myself, I agree with you that this is terrible governance.
They could have passed a law to shut down USAID, that would have been the proper, legal way to do this. They didn't. The executive legally can't do whatever they want, but the Republicans in the legislative simply stood by and cheered while the administration trampled over their legislative responsibilities and powers.
When it comes to government spending programs, according to our constitution the elections that have consequences are those for seats in Congress. The executive doesn’t have the authority to cancel USAIDs funding, nor the funding of specific programs within it.
On top of that, the executive has a responsibility to plan its work ahead of time and make such plans known before enacting them.
There are many cases currently in litigation regarding these failures.
i for one am pretty exhausted by "elections have consequences" being codeword for all previous rules systems norms obligations and institutions are totally ok to be thrown in the hopper. it's an exhausting and ridiculous shrug of the shoulder that in no way meets the moment, that is just the laziest "what can you do" nothing.
you'd hope that an internal insurrection against the United States would not be so ragingly popular. and part of the reason it's let slide, is so poorly seen as what it is is because of "elections have consequences". it's bad.
The US is hardly alone in this. The UK voted to shoot themselves in the face, because brown people are scary.
Elections (and referenda) do indeed have consequences.
It is however perfectly reasonable to look further up the causal chain and say "propaganda influences elections".
Are we going to prosecute these people or what?
Seems unlikely to me. We even gave up on Trump's tax returns, and gave up the emoluments clause given that he is the CEO of a publicly traded company and has multiple cryptocurrency scams. This administration has plot armor. Feel free to fill in the reason as to "why"; my opinions would likely get me banned.
That will become a point in a court...
We’ll be reading about the crimes of dodge for years, similar to secrets of the CIA coming out in the 1970s. Wish politicians in US weren’t so spineless about going after them.
Its the curse of the two-party system. Politicians are not risking splitting from their party, because that would mean the end of their political career.
Hopefully the midterms results in massive investigations of Trump and everyone in his orbit, but if we get “we all need to come together” faux-centrism I wouldn’t be surprised.
We need to fully destroy the notion the DOJ isn’t independent, and make a number of changes that bring us back to having a modern country.
Just the deaths of hundreds of thousands, nothing to see here.
Interesting to see how USAID in the title is like the bat signal for scumbags
Huh? Can you elaborate?
Certain political topics bring out bots and narrative-pushing. It's very obvious with certain topics.
Really hard to see how someone who wasn't even part of the executive could possibly enjoy executive immunity. Welp into the wood chipper!
such a bummer /s
omg have the political bots been directed at Hacker News. WTH?
Have been for years.
Impressive achievement for a 28 year old dude.
Breaking things is easy. Morality is difficult.
This type of strategy is almost the only way to get rid of these kinds of agencies. You'd end up with a million raodblocks being tossed up if you tried it any other way.
Right, because there shouldn't be any roadblocks when you're taking an action that has a high probability of resulting in hundreds of thousands of people dying.
Congress can and should pass a law to dismantle an agency they created. There is no real roadblock once that is done.
Some of y’all need to stop reading 4chan in your moms basement.
Read Confessions of an Economic Hitman to learn about USAID and how it had nothing to do with aid.