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I agree on this point, and that's exactly why I liked that these agencies were independent. The senate could have killed the filibuster instead and started passing laws to deal with the administrative state if they wanted to-- but they didn't because presumably the ability to loot the government and install bureacrats via a patronage system is more convenient. Oh well.
Climate change. I'm a catholic, and therefore anti-abortion, but the net effect of stuff like "not funding abortions" is dramatically outweighed by the net increase in deaths caused by droughts, floods, famines, and famine-related-instability.
But oh well, at least this power is symmetric. I hope the next democratic president just straight-up regulates carbon intensive industries out of existence.
I don't understand. Is this a real argument? There's no mechanism even gestured at, it's just words.
What mechanism do you want? I vote in accordance with my conscience, and my conscious tells me I'm going to save more lives by voting for climate action than by voting for anti-abortion measures. I wish I could just concentrate my beliefs in a single party but unfortunately we don't live in a parliamentarian democracy.
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Ok, then let's rephrase. Can we agree not to delegate so much to unelected bodies unaccountable to anyone either? I don't want Independent agencies or a Executive with so much regulatory power. I don't want either to have so much regulatory power. I want Congress to stop awarding either with broad powers that are easily abused and difficult to be held accountable.
Do you have evidence for this? I have seen reviews that show that, while the amount of property damage has increased over time, this is not due to storms getting worse, but rather that things have gotten more expensive. It doesn't seem like there has been an increase in deaths as a percentage of population or severity of storms.
If we wanted to reduce the Earth's temperature, we could do it very quickly with some basic geo-engineering. That we don't is a sign that nobody seems to think the problem is very severe yet.
(Also, as a Catholic you should know it's not about the effect of paying for an abortion, it's about the remote material cooperation with evil. Being made complicit in the murder of a baby is the thing that really upsets us and Congress explicitly tried to protect us from.)
Beyond gut instinct fermi estimates, no. But I should clarify that I'm speaking of the net effect of voting for politicians that promote particular anti-abortion policies. If I had to choose between two buttons labeled "end climate change" and "prevent abortions in the US for a hundred years" I would pick the second, but I don't think any sort of federal ban is actually enforceable. I'm suprised and impressed that republicans actually managed to overturn roe-v-wade, but most estimates of that claim that it only saves about ~30,000 lives a year. Compared to the marginal effect of preventing ISIS-style wars I'm unimpressed. I'm aware that the comparison is a little unfair because I'm imagining an intervention that could singlehandedly halt climate change at some degree thresholds-- but at the same time, I think it's likely that the most deleterious effects of climate change are liable to happen at the margins, where it might be possible to just hold the breaks long enough to get to a tipping point.
I'm concerned primarily with the net loss of life. But if we're speaking in terms of remote material cooperation with evil without considering numbers, preventing immigrants from making better lives for themselves also qualified.
This is not actually inherently evil. The Church teaches that there are many justifiable reasons to secure a border and not accept all newcomers.
Killing a baby in the womb is inherently evil whatever the circumstance.
I understand the confusion surrounding "what side should a Catholic take?" The truth is, don't. We live in a time of Exraordinary Antipolitics and should be content with calling out evil when we see it without actively hoping for evil that we're more comfortable ignoring to succeed.
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Independent is almost certainly worse.
The incentives are frequently to grow the power of the agency.
People who eventually work on policy decision typically believe in the mission in the department and therefore are ideologically predisposed to grow the agency more.
There are little checks on the agency decision making process. And because people coming up in the agency generally share the same beliefs, there is little hope for change.
Finally, the bureaucracy is largely chosen from the people in DC. DC is over 90% democrat.
Basically wanting independent agencies is wanting permanent statist democrat rule.
I agree, largely because of #3. I'd rather have a President with this power than an "Independent Agency," though I'd rather have more rules made as laws in Congress instead of rules made as regulations by the Executive.
Basically, the Legislative Branch should never give the Executive authority to make regulations that the Legislative isn't comfortable changing every few years.
I’d be more comfortable with something like the Reins act where each regulation only goes into effect with an up / down vote by Congress. Ideally, they’d be subject to four year renewals or something like that.
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