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That's an overly simplistic view of governance.

You're effectively says Congress should mandate every detail of every regulation. Even in areas where knowledge is changing (level of chemicals that are toxic, which medicines are useful and safe, etc).

The whole premise of our system is that the people within the system operate in good faith. And that's worked for most of 200+ years. I would posit that no amount of legislation will be able to stop bad-faith actors from screwing up the system, even more so when they convince ~50% of the voting popular that "burn it to the ground" is a reasonable take.

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pclmulqdq 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> You're effectively says Congress should mandate every detail of every regulation. Even in areas where knowledge is changing (level of chemicals that are toxic, which medicines are useful and safe, etc).

The scientific advisors who currently make rules at the EPA (to name one example) probably should have been giving advice to congress to make laws instead. Congress can pass an annual bill of "here's the new science." They already pass laws of unimaginable length and complexity, so I see no reason why Congress can't pass a huge omnibus "these chemicals are bad" bill every year, even if that bill is 5000-10000 pages.

By the way, speaking of the EPA, there's a lot of whiplash in that arm of government based on which party holds the presidency. If the EPA's rules were actual laws, they would need a much stronger mandate from the people to change. IMO this would be better for both environmental protection (since you don't have the party of "drill baby drill" arbitrarily changing things whenever they want) and for business because there is more certainty.

> The whole premise of our system is that the people within the system operate in good faith.

The whole premise of the American system of government is that power corrupts and a functioning government needs a series of working checks and balances. One arm of America's tripartite government has ceded most of its real power to another arm. This mostly works because the people who get into that other branch (presidents) want to play an iterated game, where burning things to the ground doesn't benefit them. We are seeing what happens when you have someone in power who is playing to win this round without regard for the iterated game.

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alistairSH 2 days ago | parent [-]

All that would do is transfer power from bureaucrats within the executive to bureaucrats within the legislature. No Congressperson is fully knowledgeable on all the areas on which they pass laws. Maybe it is a better approach than what we have today, but I'm unconvinced. At least with the system we have today, the bureaucrats are generally experts within their areas. Congressional staffers have no such experience and generally rely on lobbyists.

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pclmulqdq 2 days ago | parent [-]

The transfer of where the bureaucrats work is exactly what I am proposing, and has very significant differences in terms of the mechanics of government. A law has much more binding power over the executive branch than a rule made by the executive branch, and if the last month hasn't convinced you of that, I don't know what will. Laws can also establish private causes of action that require no intervention from a bad-faith executive to enforce. Congress today already has no knowledge of the laws they pass, anyway.

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alistairSH 2 days ago | parent [-]

Good points. My next concern would be the churn inherent in such a system. Every two years, the entire House and 1/3 of the Senate is re-elected. That doesn't give much time for a bureaucrat to gain experience before needed to concentrate on the re-election of their benefactor (I use that word purposefully here, because the US did away with patronage for career bureaucrats in the executive in the late 19th century - no such rules exist in the legislative).

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pclmulqdq 2 days ago | parent [-]

The executive branch churns every 4 years, and is forced to churn at least every 8 years. In practice, it's not a concern, and it wouldn't be under congress, either.

Think about this in good faith and try to make it work in your head, and you will see that this proposal is actually not that different from how the executive branch rule-makers work today from a day-to-day perspective, while carrying very different legal implications.

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alistairSH 2 days ago | parent [-]

The executive branch churns every 4 years, and is forced to churn at least every 8 years.

That only applies to political appointees. The rank and file are permanent employees (or were until a few weeks ago).

Anyways, not saying your idea couldn't work, only that it's not easily implemented and needs a lot of consideration to do well. It's a wholesale change to how we've governed ourselves for ~150 years. But, the idea of a permanent set of legislative experts has some appeal.

	▲	pclmulqdq a day ago \| parent [-]
		We haven't governed ourselves with an executive-branch-led bureaucracy for 150 years. It's been about 70-80 years total. This model started with FDR and was really expanded in the 60's and 70's. The US existed for most of its lifetime without a permanent bureaucracy. The system you are talking about as the one that has worked forever is much younger and much less stable than you think.

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dragonwriter 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The whole premise of our system is that the people within the system operate in good faith.

It very much is not.

It is, however, that the people will not simultaneously elect sufficent majorities in both houses of Congress and a President who all fail to do so, such that the systems by which the political branches check eachother continue to function in a way which constrains those actors in either that do act in bad faith.

> I would posit that no amount of legislation will be able to stop bad-faith actors from screwing up the system,

Electoral reforms to the legislative branch that could be done through statute could go a long way to reducing the probability of a sufficient concentration of bad faith actors to overwhelm the system, and electoral and structural reforms to the executive branch to make it less unitary, which would take a Constitutional amendment, could increase the necessary concentration to achieve a total breakdown.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>And that's worked for most of 200+ years. I would posit that no amount of legislation will be able to stop bad-faith actors from screwing up the system,

This doesn't even require bad faith actors for it to become a clusterfuck. It's a scaling issue. Things that used to work at smaller scales accumulate cruft and other issues, until things ultimately fall apart. 200 years is of course a good run, but it wasn't going to last forever. Actually 200 years is such a long run, one doesn't have to bring "bad faith actors" into the equation at all to reach this conclusion, but I guess when things start to fall apart some people need someone to blame. Ask yourself this though... if the system was doing so great, how would it have allowed someone like Trump to ever win in the first place (let alone in the second place, as he did in 2024)? That's not a healthy system. Too many were disillusioned, and that's not their fault.

>~50% of the voting popular that "burn it to the ground" is a reasonable take.

They are disgusted with what they see, and have for a very long time felt powerless to change it. Not really just "felt", but were powerless to change it. Trump ran for office, they saw an opportunity. It's not exactly unreasonable, it's just inconvenient to a class of people who have grown comfortable because they're a little closer to the spigots of graft that pour forth. Being "reasonable" in the way you'd use that word hasn't really ever worked for those people, and they waited quite a long time for it to do the trick.