Most people think that the laws of this country are passed by the Congress and State legislatures. That is not the case. In most cases, a Government department is created and funded by Congress. The head of that department is responsible for writing the code of laws. If the traffic department wants to write a law that has a fine of $300 for sneezing at a stop sign, you pay the fine or hire a lawyer for $1,000. Mind you, if you don’t pay the fine or obey the restriction, the bureaucrats activate the next line of enforcement which is the police. And as you saw in the BLM cattle feed charges of a few years ago, they had the FBI out there trying to enforce their edicts. The laws had been changed by bureaucratic proclamation.
So, what is happening? We have a President that is starting to eliminate a lot of these directives that gave these agencies regulatory authority over us. The EPA has lost about 770 employees and they are not being replaced. It was those people claiming that the car companies were getting better gas mileage due to their regulations. The truth was, the increased mileage was due to the forced production of more fuel-efficient economy cars than high performance models. By averaging the overall mileage as a group, you got the desired result. You could still buy both, but you paid more for the gas guzzler. Get rid of ethanol additive to your gas, and you might even see an extra 4 miles a gallon.
Basically, the President enforces the laws. He can help validate a future law if it has less than a 2/3 majority vote for it and at least a 50 % approval. As chief enforcer, he can write Executive directives to define how a department functions and can issue directives on how to execute the law, like forget it. Obama did this with the border guards.
Obama’s presidency was fraught with executive directives for everything. These were bureaucrats deciding what was right for you to do or not do. If you didn’t march to their drummer, you were fined or jailed.
We are slowly emerging from this Obama fiasco of government regulations for everything, to one of less government regulation. The Trump administration brings anticipation of less supervision and more economic freedom.
Let’s ring in the new year and forget that we are Democrats or Republicans. Of course, with Congress it is very hard to forget what Obama did with health care. He taught the Republicans that he didn’t need them for anything. Attitudes matter and I think the Democrat's party is going to get pay back in the coming new year. Hopefully less government regulation will turn the economy loose.
2 comments:
Hi Jim - I don't know enough to appreciate what you've said but would be interested in your and the consensus view of what the implications would be of Trump building the Wall under emergency powers (is that the same as a Presidential Directive?)
Btw typo on your last word there.
Hi Sack
I fixed the spelling error, thanks.
Presidential directives are when the president "suggests" how a department of government should transact business with its citizens or protect them. These departments can rewrite the laws or enforce new ones. Like demanding wheel chair access for everyone, or charging farmers for grazing cattle on government lands.
The president's prime job is to uphold the laws of the United States and protect our borders and guarantee the safety of its citizens. He doesn't need Congressional permission to enforce this. He could be removed from office for failure to protect the country from this very sort of violation.
If he can demonstrate that the Congress will not allocate the money for the defense of the border, he can go as far as exercising emergency powers, and order that the measures deemed necessary, be performed at government expense. The Judiciary could object, but I think the Supreme Court would uphold his right to do it.
Post a Comment