Will DOGE get the job done? I am not holding my breath.
I once heard a discussion where the person said that term limits would be good, but the real power lies with the unelected bureaucracy
The real problem is going to come from the entrenched bureaucracy who will tell the new administration, we cannot do that because it is against our rules. You bring those guys in along with their bosses up the chain and bring in the rules guys and tell them, this is legal and it’s going to happen and you are going to fix your rules, or 24 hrs from now none of you have jobs, and as of right now that ridiculous rule is canclled and you have 1 hr to bring me the memo so I can sign it or you are dismissed now!
I believe 15% of the federal workforce are over 60. I expect to see a lot of retirements.
I do expect to see increased efficiency, and a lot of jobs going away.
And there will be a certain amount of “legal problems” that may convince people to move on to other things.
There are definitely ideologues in the bureaucracy, and I think ideologues have been moving up. The leadership is driven by Progressive ideology. If we can get rid of a lot of those people, we may find some lower level people who don’t much care about ideology but who just want steady employment. Or, if they are somewhat ideological, they may be smart enough to realize that shutting up and just pushing their pencils is the safest way to keep out of trouble.
A progressive lifetime income tax on government privilege income is possible (payable prior to standard 1040 income taxation and deductible for standard 1040 income taxation, sort of like state income tax is federally treated):
first $1,000,000 0%
next $1,000,000 10%
next $1,000,000 20%
next $1,000,000 30%
....
over $10,000,000 99%
These brackets be adjusted 3% per year for inflation.
Government privileged income would be any income gained by or with the assistance of government power.
Government-funded school teachers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, licensed contractors who do more than 10% by revenue of government restricted work such as asbestos inspections and clean up, employees and owners of businesses who get more than 10% of income from government, employees of tax-deductible charities and foundations, CDL truck drivers, unionized employees not waiving government union employee protection, government employees including military, elected federal officeholders, etc. would be subject to the tax.
It would be paid on their salaries, wages, pensions, all government funded health care including Medicare & Medicaid, all mandated health care benefits, all government pensions including Social Security and military, government housing assistance, HUD fair market valuations of low income housing, etc.
People would generally shift out of government work and into the pure market sector.
Easy-peasey. Rotate all depts across nation to different cities. Spread the tax $$ around and shed the losers. When they quit, they get no benefits.
We do not need everything in one place. Zoom is better than the swamp.
Supreme Court 9, Administrative State 0
On April 14, 2023, the Supreme Court struck a blow supporting our Constitution and individual liberties. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, citizens began losing many freedoms through administrative edicts. Appeals of these regulations had to be made to courts within an agency, which has already found the people guilty. Such power harks back to discretions of English kings unrestrained by Parliament found in such places as King’s Council and the Star Chamber.
The Supreme Court acted to reassert the jurisdiction of district and circuit courts and the legislature as established by the Constitution. All power was to reside there, so Americans could avoid the sad experience of English citizens. Justice Kagan delivered the unanimous opinion of the court saying, “One respondent attacks as well the combination of prosecutorial and adjudicatory functions in a single agency….They maintain in essence that the agencies as currently structured, are unconstitutional in much of their work”.
You and I could relate too many examples of people’s frustrating experiences facing government bureaucrats. Their sufferings cause me to reflect on a passage where Fredrick Douglass describes overseer duties. I only substituted for the words slave, overseer, and master.
“No matter how innocent a citizen might be it availed him nothing when accused by the bureaucrat of any violation of a regulation. To be accused was to be convicted and to be convicted was to be punished….To escape punishment was to escape accusation….few citizens had the fortune to do either under the overseership of the agency.”
Supreme Court 9, Administrative State 0
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4145682/posts
The History and Danger of Administrative Law
https://constitutionclub.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/the-history-and-danger-of-administrative-law/
Administrative law is commonly defended as a new sort of power, a product of the 19th and the 20th centuries that developed to deal with the problems of modern society in all its complexity. From this perspective, the Framers of the Constitution could not have anticipated it and the Constitution could not have barred it. What I will suggest, in contrast, is that administrative power is actually very old. It revives what used to be called prerogative or absolute power, and it is thus something that the Constitution centrally prohibited.
This thread is hysterically funny.