- 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/...
Who decides the ultimate authority on accreditation anyway?
Why can't we just start a new trust network?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
And more importantly, their local democracy is going strong.
I guess you never heard of gerrymandering.
The US has an incredibly weak form of government.
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.
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
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.
I found a more recent page that states the average for k to 12 is 13% but I realize this is missing college funding, I assume Pell Grants and such so it should be higher.
I know AZ spends very little but they are still harmed right? Maybe I'm not understanding your point.
If legislative bodies in any state but more so Red states attempt to spend more they'll be voted out. So the funding likely won't increase however the state government knows it's important so they'll be easily controlled by the federal government withholding funds
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2025/01/24/are-red-...
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...
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.
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'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.
Republicans would.
The shoe only fits on one foot.
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.
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.
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.
Not without positive action by Congress they don't. (US Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 10.)
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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).
For another example, take the frequent neofascist argument that the federal agencies are "unaccountable" without being under the direct command of the President. 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.
But either way I don't really see what greater point you're trying to make.
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?
Does that imply unaccountable, or does it mean Congress thought they were doing a good job?
The misinformation era means there's a gulf of frequently incorrect assumptions about what the Federal agencies actually do.
I mean, what if Congress created them to be unaccountable? Then both things would be true!
these are very different situations, and it appears you wish to defend the motte and get the bailey for free?
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 mechanism is there. If Congress is not passing new legislation to change their 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
> 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.
A temporary pause seems squarely within what the executive is allowed to do.
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.
The republicans have been more willing to pull that lever, but the system is designed such that its a perfectly legal lever to pull.
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.
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.
Are you familiar with the constitution? It describes which powers belong to the executive and which don't.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.