[ancient_geezer]

If there really was anything the public could do to stop such abuses of power by the bureaucracies, they would have been used to stop Bensen's shotgun ban (which the NRA or GOA would have attempted) or the HHS HIPAA regulations (which a huge number of medical, insurance, and software companies, not to mention privacy groups, opposed for very valid reasons).

Mere opposition does not a bad regulation make, there has to be a material error, malfeasance, misfeasance involved for challenge. If what is done is within the scope statute and in common practice of the art, or legislatively mandated methodology. Then you are out of luck unless Congress or the President makes the challenge by shooting the regulation down.

Intent of the statue as expressed within the language of statute is the key to a challenge at the judicial level. If a proposed statistical value, which is what is under discussion, can be shown to be erroneous in regard to the historically adopted standard or legislatively adopted standard. Then you have a decent basis for challenging the result.

In terms of your examples legislative intent was not an issue, nor a statistcally absurd CPI value which is what would be required to send a $150,000 FCA to anyone. A CPI error of the magnitude it would take to implement such a scheme is totally irrational. It would be totally irrational to see an advance of of even 3 standard devieations (21%) of one year's FCA over the current year much less an advance of some 15,000%. Any increase of FCA would also entail the increase of the NRST tax rate to compensate. A factor that would hit everyone right in the gut at much lower levels than your absurdity.

But then why not just some bureaucrat go out and start sending 150,000 checks to everyone, and not bother with FCA or the CPI. By your reasoning, no one would or could do anything about it so that bureaucrat can just as well go ahead and do it and be acclaimed a hero for buying a landslide victory and turn the country over to the communist party.

You reasoning is not just invalid, it is just plain absurd.

[Technogeeb]

Mere opposition does not a bad regulation make, there has to be a material error, malfeasance, misfeasance involved for challenge. If what is done is within the scope statute

And that's the whole point. The ability to ban shotguns was within the scope of GCA'68 because of the way it was written, even though that wasn't the desire of the authors (or at least they claimed it was not). In the same way, the ability to increase the "prebate" government handout to whatever level desired is within the scope of the proposed legislation, since they already have the administrative authority to manipulate the values upon which it is based and the legislation itself does not proactively limit that power in any way.

In terms of your examples legislative intent was not an issue, nor a statistcally absurd CPI value which is what would be required to send a $150,000 FCA to anyone. A CPI error of the magnitude it would take to implement such a scheme is totally irrational

Similar claims were made in defense of GCA'68 and the HIPAA legislation. Those who insisted it put into place the ability to ban certain firearms (or violate medical privacy) were assured that their fears were "absurd". Yet that same power WAS abused, even if it did take 25 years to abuse it (or 5 in the case of HIPAA). Your claim that the safeguards in place against abuse of administrative authority are nonsense, because such abuses have already occurred and their existence is well-documented. You can't logically claim something can't happen when it already has happened.

But then why not just some bureaucrat go out and start sending 150,000 checks to everyone, and not bother with FCA or the CPI.

Because the FCA gives him the illusion of legitimacy (in the same way that CGA'68 gave the gun banners the illusion of legitimacy) that he would not previously have; which is precisely why I don't want to give that power to the bureaucracy in the first place.

You reasoning is not just invalid, it is just plain absurd.

No, the reasoning of the bureaucrat would be absurd. But absurdity won't stop them. This is more than just a theoretical argument. There are already (relatively recent) historical examples of bureaucratic authority being misused in essentially the exact same way that I fear the proposed FCA / handout authority would be misused. You may claim that my reasoning is "invalid" or "absurd", but you ignore the fact that such abuses of bureaucratic authority have ALREADY happened, and to suggest the system is somehow immune to such manipulation in light of the historical fact that such manipulation has already occurred is foolish. It is you that are being absurd, by ignoring historical reality in favor of "trusting" the bureaucracy.