Some thoughts from Yuval Levin:
The American system of government is designed to restrain radical change and, as Alexander Hamilton put it, “to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws through haste, inadvertence, or design.” Our institutions are set up to oppose one another in ways that make sudden major steps unlikely, and that force significant and lasting actions of the government to take the form of painful plodding. Our republic takes a lot of time to turn and reaches decisions slowly, often over several election cycles and through a process of coming to terms.
The yearning for a cleaner, smoother process more amendable to technocratic control which is so central to the president’s rhetoric now (and a form of which was also at the heart of S&P’s defense of its downgrade of American credit last week) is a rejection of the American system of government dressed up as a defense of that system—a favorite gambit of progressives since at least Herbert Croly. At the core of its contemporary iteration on the left is a misreading of American politics in the two decades following World War II. In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama speaks of a “time before the fall, a golden age in Washington when, regardless of which party was in power, civility reigned and government worked.” He has in mind in particular the early and middle 1960s—a period he suggests was the high-water mark of the American regime.
But in fact, that period marked a temporary but very costly failure of the adversarial controls essential to the American system. That failure did not occur (as some others have) because of a terrible war or a grave economic calamity. It happened in the midst of peace and prosperity. It had its roots in an unusual postwar elite consensus on social policy and in the catastrophic failure of the Republican party to offer a plausible alternative to that consensus in the 1964 election. The result was a brief but significant explosion of policymaking that yielded the hasty and careless creation of a massive artifice of entitlement and discretionary programs we have come to know as the Great Society. The peculiar combination of factors that enabled that spurt of reckless activism did not last long, and our politics soon returned to a more balanced state in which our governing institutions and parties staunchly resist one another’s advances and change is relatively slow and measured. But precisely that return to normality has meant that the products of the Great Society have been very hard to undo or reform. Our system of government was never supposed to allow such hyperactivity, and so is not well equipped to reverse its excesses.
We need at least one more election, and probably more, to make true progress (and not of the “progressive” kind).
Even if Republicans win big time next year, it’s going to take a long time to undo the damage caused by the utter stupidity of Obama, Pelosi and Reid. I wonder how loudly the Left will squeal if the next president blames his predecessor even 1/10th as much as Obama blames Bush. It’ll probably be on par with their demands that we honor the office of president when a Democrat is in power but calling a Republican president names like “Nazi”, “Chimp”, “ChimpyMcBushHitler”, ad nausea.
Yeah Larry, that’s why it would be so cool to have a Republican woman as President. I’d give the liberal cable channels 30 seconds after the results to jump the misogynistic shark.
ot photos of the remains of the soviet space shuttle
http://www.themysteryworld.com/2010/12/abandoned-remains-of-russian-space.html
As I started to read the essay excerpt above, I thought to myself “this will be about reversing the New Deal.” So, I was puzzled when the essay discussed the supposedly unique circumstances that produced Great Society programs. What is Social Security, chopped liver? And for that matter, weren’t the circumstances that produced the FDA at the beginning of the 1900s similar?
Also, our system allows us to go to war quite fast, regardless of any differences of opinion between the legislative and executive branches on how exactly we should begin a war. Once a war begins, the door is opened for transformative laws to be passed quite quickly as well. The civil war and the reconstruction is an extreme case, but I think the principle holds true for other US wars as well.
“Also, our system allows us to go to war quite fast, regardless of any differences of opinion between the legislative and executive branches on how exactly we should begin a war.”
Going to war is as fast as any other vote in congress although sometimes the voting is skipped.
“as Alexander Hamilton put it, “to increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws through haste, inadvertence, or design.””
This could never happen.
Imagine Congress held the nuclear launch codes. Sure, this wouldn’t make it easy for the US to respond quickly, but would congressional control of nuclear weapons lead to less international deterrence, or more?!
Indeed Bobwan, as Hayek warned us, wartime socialism leads to peacetime socialism.
While the Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war, the president has had control of the nuclear launch codes since at least the start of the ICBM era and perhaps sooner. An ICBM takes only about 30 minutes to fly between the former USSR and the US. You can’t even get a Senator to clear his throat in that amount of time.
I read Krauthammer’s article this morning talking about how the system, is supposed to slow down massive change…and then there’s the above quote.
But I don’t know, it seemed like once Obama, Reid and Pelosi got majorities they transformed the nation mighty fast.
“they transformed the nation mighty fast.
That’s because they ran rough shod over The Constitution. Hence, the reason the 11th court ruled the individual mandate unconstitutional.
The White House said the appeals court ruling will be overturned. I’m sure they wanted to add “the Constitution be damned.”
If Congress can compel people to engage in a private transaction because having health insurance might affect interstate commerce, why can’t they pass a law mandating that blacks pick cotton in return for room and board provided by Southern gentlemen? Cotton is used in clothing (which certainly crosses state lines) and in making smokeless gunpowder, so its efficient production is a matter of national security.
We need at least one more election
Too many people misunderstand what happened in the Senate last election. The notion is that because the Republicans failed to gain a majority in the Senate, their views must not have been greatly accepted. The fact is they won a majority of seats up for election in the Senate, but those seats representing only a third of the Senate were not enough to change it.
This too is part of the inertia of the federal apparatus, but I suspect a repeat of 2010 will bring enough Hope and Change to the Senate. So far, 2010 has at least created one House of Congress interested in passing a budget rather than just passing a few large spending bills and no overall budget as happened from 2008 to 2011. That failure to pass a budget had nothing to do with inertia, but rather a disinterest in fiscal restraint.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that a lot fewer Democrat seats were up for election in ’10 as compared to, say, ’12.
If the right does take control, it won’t matter much if whichever president doesn’t shake things up and clean house. First official act… fire every discretionary bureaucrat. Don’t miss a single one. Then assign heads of each agency that make J. Edgar appear a commie.
Don’t let Ron Paul anywhere near foreign policy, but make him head of the Federal Reserve.
Secretary of state: John Bolton. Have the men in black report to him! 🙂
There should be some cabinet position for Trump. He’s an idiot, but his heart is in the right place. No, not commerce. That’s his problem, he is exactly the wrong kind of free enterprise guy.
ken anthony Says:
“No, not commerce…..”
On Day Two the Commerce Department should be completely eliminated. Day 3 at the outside. Along with Transportation, HUD, Health and Human services, 99.99% of the IRS (because on Day One we voted in a Flat Tax retroactive to last April 15th), Department of Energy, Education, and a whole basketful of useless government trough slurpers.
Gregg, I’m curious about your targeting of the Department of Energy. Here’s what they do:
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States’ policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. Its responsibilities include the nation’s nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy conservation, energy-related research, radioactive waste disposal, and domestic energy production. DOE also sponsors more basic and applied scientific research than any other US federal agency; most of this is funded through its system of United States Department of Energy National Laboratories.
Which of the above tasks would you eliminate, and for those which are not eliminated, who do you think should do them (or how should they be done differently)? Answering comprehensively would be way too much work for a blog post, and I’m not asking for that, but if you have any thoughts, I’m interested.
Also, as a pro-Science Chicagoan, I’m particularly partial to Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory….
“Its responsibilities include the nation’s nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, ”
i think the defense dept. can take care of that.
“and domestic energy production.”
yea right
That’s only one portion of the Department of Energy, Bob. It used to be done by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. Going to the DOE’s website and looking at their own mission statement:
The mission of the Energy Department is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.
Sounds all warm and cuddly. However, the DOE was founded to make America less dependent on foreign energy. In that, it has failed miserably. There are portions of just about any agency you can name that can justify their existance, even the Department of Education (established by Jimmy Carter as a sop to the teachers’ lobby). However, most agencies are not worth saving as a whole. Zero base budget each part of each agencies and make them prove that they deserve to continue to exist.
I like how yer thinkin’ Gregg. I take it you think my choice for Ron Paul is inspired? Do that for the rest of them. I’d give commerce to you. I’ll give you a month and a generous severance when you’re done.
If it doesn’t fit in the defense department… we don’t need it.
Bob-1 Says:
“Gregg, I’m curious about your targeting of the Department of Energy…….”
Any defense related work goes to the Department of Defense. So that takes care of things like “Its responsibilities include the nation’s nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy”
We don’t need a Federal Energy department to handle “conservation”.
The Navy knows how to handle nuclear material so they can promulgate the circulars as to how to handle it.
Domestic energy production is a business and should be run by business with the exception of the usual fraud and legal aspects.
…and on and on. I would be willing to bet there are boards, committees agencies, groups blue ribbon panels within the DOE that even the DOE forgot they had, let alone the Feds.
ken anthony Says:
“I like how yer thinkin’ Gregg. I take it you think my choice for Ron Paul is inspired? ”
😉 Ah well Ken sorry but I think that while Ron Paul has many good ideas, he has many more loony ones.
Oh and I forgot the Department of Agriculture.
Chop.
I would much rather over-chop and find out that we needed a hundreth of the tasks assigned to one of these colossal trough feeders, than to try and trim back. Trimming back never gets you there.
Sure he’s a loon, but he plans to audit before ending it. That sounds like a good idea to me.
Come on guys, how could you leave out the EPA?
Put that sucker on the list.
Norm, our founders were adults and very clear about unenumerated. The sad thing is, they thought adults in the future would understand this. Now it’s going to require more than may be possible to fix it.
It’s not possible to enumerate all our rights. The first and second amendments have helped protect those rights. Imagine if they had not been written down. But the fact is, they should not have ever needed being written down if adults that understood and revered the amazing thing our founders did was adhered to. Thus we have the EPA.