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Comment by jdross | Hacker News Reader

Arguably it was designed explicitly for the chief executive having control of the executive branch we just haven’t had executives with this level of interest in making major changes in 40+ years. Was somewhat common to shake up the scope of the federal gov’t when the bureaucracy was much smaller in the 1800’s and early 1900’s

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Correct. It’s hard for people to imagine but the country functioned very differently before FDR and before him Lincoln. We’ve lived in FDRs government for 75 years and it’s served well for a good deal of that time. But nothing lasts for ever and even wine doesn’t continue to get better forever.

You could argue there have been 4 Republics - articles of confederation, Washington, Lincoln, FDR marking the turning point. The world has changed a lot. It feels like the time is right to rethink the federal governments scope and function and how it relates to her people and the world.

I'd rather a bunch of corrupt oligarchs not be the ones behind the change turning the US into a different "network-states"

You are talking about a time before social programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

People have higher expectations of what their government should be able to do.

It’s not about going back. It’s about advancing and changing the current state to better work for the people.

We have a system designed for this. It's called Congress.

DOGE is usurping Congress' role.

The last thing we need is a "new republic" designed by someone like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

You’re right that previous governments did not just recklessly disband entire agencies based on the wishes of an unelected billionaire and a bunch of teenagers.

I wonder why.

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