No. of Recommendations: 16
So not accountable to anyone, huh. I generally reject that premise for leadership. What is the point to electing a President whose policies the citizens, who we are told ARE in charge (protect the democracy they chant), can be undermined by an un-elected perma-state.
They are accountable. They're just not solely accountable to the President. That's the whole point - the President is not the sole person in charge of the government, and arguably isn't even the office that's supposed to be most in charge of the government.
Congress gets to shape and control the Executive. They get to do so directly through some rather obvious means - law-making and budgetary power, for example. The Executive exists to execute their laws, not just be the one who decides what the rules are going to be. They also do so through direct but non-obvious means - influencing personnel through the Advice and Consent power, blocking things that the Executive wants until policies are changed (hi, Tommy Tuberville!), conducting oversight hearings and yelling at staff until they do want the Committee Chair wants, and the like.
The Administrative Procedure Act is an example of that. There are competing policy interests involved with government judgment calls. On the one hand, people have to interact with the federal government a lot. It's very, very frustrating for "customers" of the government to get different answers to the same questions - either because they're dealing with a different branch office, someone's retired, or because there's been an election. The law is the law, and it shouldn't change based on the identity of the administrator, and it makes it impossible for "the governed" to plan their lives and businesses if they don't know what the rules are. If Congress hasn't actually changed the law, then the change of administration shouldn't change the law. On the other hand, we have elections for President, and we want government to be responsive. Sometimes government policy in how they're going to handle a law changes, even if the law does not. The more room their is for that, the more the Executive branch is accountable to the voters. The APA strikes a balance - the President can change policies, but they have to "show their work" and solicit input, rather than just do it arbitrarily.
Field personnel in the executive agencies are most just grinding out the work. The rot occurs at the top, so at least the top guy and the to or three layers beneath should serve at the pleasure of the President.
They do. There are about 2-3K political appointments the President makes. They always get to pick the top guy and the next two layers down. Possibly three - I'm not sure.
Let me ask you again - is there a specific example you're thinking of in the EPA? Department of Labor? Department of Energy? Some instance during Trump's first term where the Department Secretary asked staff to pursue a policy and they just said, "no"? What's the biggest single instance of this that you think hamstrung Trump's policy implementation?
