power grabbing
Feb. 14th, 2011 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foolsguineaWho's really guilty of a power grab?
Good article overall. Some highlights:
Limiting the power of the executive branch simply gives greater power to the other branches: after stripping all power from the executive branch, Congress could still vote to double taxes and mandate that all citizens keep a portrait of President Obama in their living rooms -- though the (unelected) Supreme Court would probably declare the latter unconstitutional, if Obama hadn’t vetoed it first. That’s because we have a system of checks and balances instead of one in which the will of the people as expressed by legislators rules supreme -- in no small part because our esteemed Founders didn’t actually trust "the people" as much as the Tea Party seems to think.
Furthermore, the binary, zero-sum view of governance in which power taken from government regulators will be returned directly to the individual makes for fiery rhetoric, but conveniently fails to acknowledge that limiting the power of government regulators actually tends to increase the amount of power corporations have in our lives. This, of course, plays right along with Republicans' steadfast commitment to the freedom of the wealthy to do whatever they want at everyone else’s expense.
Moreover, it strains credulity to believe that Republicans are really just concerned about representing the people’s will when they’ve done their darndest to block majority votes at every turn. Indeed, they were all too happy to deny the will of the 78% of Americans who wanted Congress to "do something" about global warming back in 2009 when climate legislation was still on the legislative agenda. Likewise, nary a voice is raised to protest the democratic implications of the inordinate power of senators from demographically tiny states like Maine and Montana over the direction of policy, nor the fact that coal-mining West Virginia gets a disproportionate voice in Congress compared to green energy-leader California. And while Republicans complain that agencies charged with implementing policy are led by unaccountable officials, they won’t confirm the judicial and executive appointees that require Senate approval.
Good article overall. Some highlights:
Limiting the power of the executive branch simply gives greater power to the other branches: after stripping all power from the executive branch, Congress could still vote to double taxes and mandate that all citizens keep a portrait of President Obama in their living rooms -- though the (unelected) Supreme Court would probably declare the latter unconstitutional, if Obama hadn’t vetoed it first. That’s because we have a system of checks and balances instead of one in which the will of the people as expressed by legislators rules supreme -- in no small part because our esteemed Founders didn’t actually trust "the people" as much as the Tea Party seems to think.
Furthermore, the binary, zero-sum view of governance in which power taken from government regulators will be returned directly to the individual makes for fiery rhetoric, but conveniently fails to acknowledge that limiting the power of government regulators actually tends to increase the amount of power corporations have in our lives. This, of course, plays right along with Republicans' steadfast commitment to the freedom of the wealthy to do whatever they want at everyone else’s expense.
Moreover, it strains credulity to believe that Republicans are really just concerned about representing the people’s will when they’ve done their darndest to block majority votes at every turn. Indeed, they were all too happy to deny the will of the 78% of Americans who wanted Congress to "do something" about global warming back in 2009 when climate legislation was still on the legislative agenda. Likewise, nary a voice is raised to protest the democratic implications of the inordinate power of senators from demographically tiny states like Maine and Montana over the direction of policy, nor the fact that coal-mining West Virginia gets a disproportionate voice in Congress compared to green energy-leader California. And while Republicans complain that agencies charged with implementing policy are led by unaccountable officials, they won’t confirm the judicial and executive appointees that require Senate approval.
