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Comment by aaronblohowiak | Hacker News Reader

elections have consequences. We have a representative democracy and administrative employees serve at the pleasure of the head of the administration. "shoulds" and "musts" only go as far as the political will to enforce them. The overwhelming majority of the electorate seems to care about how expensive their personal lifestyle is with various takes on individual liberty vs enforced morality used as wedge issues (neither party is consistently on one side or the other of this balance, fwiw.)

as an institutionalist myself, I agree with you that this is terrible governance.

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They could have passed a law to shut down USAID, that would have been the proper, legal way to do this. They didn't. The executive legally can't do whatever they want, but the Republicans in the legislative simply stood by and cheered while the administration trampled over their legislative responsibilities and powers.

It’s more complicated than that. You have to read the specific statutes in question to see what they require or don’t require.

The USAID-related litigation has largely been unsuccessful because the appropriations bills don’t necessarily require USAID to do particular programs. Most of the appropriations bills appropriate money for the State department.

That is not true. Funds are not allocated "for the State department". There is a statutory purpose for every allocated dollar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50261784#50265886

As I understand it, under the "unitary executive theory" the executive can legally do whatever it wants.

No, the executive can’t do whatever it wants. But if the executive can do it, then the President must be able to do it. In principle you can have a unitary executive that’s also very weak.

The first line of Article II says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The first three articles all start with a similar line. For the legislature and Supreme Court, everyone understands that the powers of those branches can only be exercised by the constitutionally designated actors. Congress can’t create a law that creates bodies within the judiciary staffed by employees that exercises power independently of Article III judges. Similarly, Congress can’t create independent agencies within the executive that can exercise executive power independently of the President.

This article isn't about that, though? USAID was never designated as an independent agency. But it was a statutory agency, which means that the President was required to run it according to its statutory structure.

Congress still directs the President, for example, to operate a Food and Drug Administration in coordination with the HHS secretary and the commissioner of food and drugs. All three of them have broad authority to direct its operations and efforts as they see fit. But they may not decide to stop regulating food and drugs entirely, nor recruit a toadie from Elon Musk as a sin-eater to make that decision.

I was responding to the following comment:

> I understand it, under the "unitary executive theory" the executive can legally do whatever it wants.

You’re right that this doesn’t have to do with the unitary executive. That’s my point. It’s about things like the impoundment control act.

And to be clear, they couldn't have passed that law because doing so would be extremely unpopular. I.e. they would not have been able to gain the required support for their actions.

When it comes to government spending programs, according to our constitution the elections that have consequences are those for seats in Congress. The executive doesn’t have the authority to cancel USAIDs funding, nor the funding of specific programs within it.

On top of that, the executive has a responsibility to plan its work ahead of time and make such plans known before enacting them.

There are many cases currently in litigation regarding these failures.

> The executive doesn’t have the authority to cancel USAIDs funding, nor the funding of specific programs within it

But funding is provided in annual appropriations bills, and Congress has since enacted appropriations bills that allocate funds directly to the state department.

That’s why the USAID litigation has not been very successful. The best legal argument is that the executive can’t cancel funding Congress has specifically allocated to an agency. But Congress eliminated that argument.

No, those are the talking points you are fed. The appropriation act assigns specific dollar amounts to specific program types and countries or regions. US AID would allocate to specific providers/NGO programs but its not like there were any substitutions made. They just stopped the flow of dollars with no warning. More than 81% of programs were simply stopped and the funds expired without being spent.

For 2025 there was a continuing resolution to keep funding at 2024 levels.

The 2024 bill[1] section 7019 references the state division document[2], which has the spending by category, the tables start on page 20.

[1] - http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240318/WDI39597.PDF

[2] - https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20240318/Division%20F%2...

But in mid-2025 there was a bill that rescinded already appropriated funds: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4

And for 2026 the appropriations bills allocated the money directly to the state department.

Yes, after the laws were broken congress said daddy Trump can break laws. But they didn't rescind everything. $4B expired because it was unspent. That is a crime, and it has name, and that name is impoundment.

Also, are you going to even acknowledge that your previous deflections were completely incorrect, and that you just reflexively moved to a new deflection that is also incorrect?

> Yes, after the laws were broken congress said daddy Trump can break laws

The impoundment control act specifically provides for Congress to resend previously appropriate spending if the president doesn’t want to spend it. nothing in the empowerment control act that clearly prevents the president from freezing spending for a short period within a single given budget year before asking Congress to resend particular appropriations.

You just can't do it, can you? Take the L man, you just got schooled and you refuse to admit it.

You are mistaken about how the impoundment process works.

I suggest you read:

https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/u-s-foreign-aid-fre...

I suggest you read the actual appropriations bills. E.g. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/4665...

The USAID budget in 2024 was almost $35 billion annually. If you search the budget bill for amounts “apportioned to” USAID, you will not find $35 billion of annual budget authority specifically to USAID. Much of USAID’s funding is appropriated to the President and apportioned to State. State has broad powers to transfer the funds: https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/119-134/t22/s2675/

There is a complex web of statues and regulations that applies to the state department specifically. There is a reason these lawsuits have not gone anywhere.

It is pretty clear what the goal was here: to do an end run around spending money that was already appropriately earmarked. You can twist and turn all you want but that's what it was and no amount of seeking justification after the fact is going to change that.

The problem is that if you see everything through the twin lenses of paper and power that you risk losing your humanity. USAID, if anything, did plenty of good. I've seen it up close. Seeing it shut down killed people, pure and simple, and whether that may have not been the goal (it may well have been the goal, I do not know) the outcome is the same.

Creative interpretation of the rules and using judges bought and paid for and installed on dubious grounds as ways to force through things that in any other administration would have you hollering makes for an interesting test in character, morals and ultimately in actual justice.

And therein lies the reason why these lawsuits have not gone anywhere. But nobody's fooled. Well, ok, maybe you are.

> It is pretty clear what the goal was here: to do an end run around spending money that was already appropriately earmarked.

Yes, that was the goal. But the statute expressly allows for that goal: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11374.

> USAID, if anything, did plenty of good. I've seen it up close.

There was a time when it did that, yes. But it began as a State Department front to interfere in the politics of third world countries and ultimately returned to such activities. There's a reason Mexico's President, who hates Trump, supported shutting it down: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-musk-unexpected-ally-push-shu... ("During a press conference on Tuesday, Sheinbaum voiced support for shutting down USAID, criticizing the agency's role in funding organizations she described as working against Mexican interests.").

I'm deeply familiar with USAID. My dad worked for USAID contractors and my family came to the U.S. on an H1 visa from such a job. USAID did some great projects in Bangladesh. But it probably killed more people in the long run through political interference than it helped. USAID was one of the last bastions of Anglo-Protestants in the US, along with the CIA. Extremely upright, orderly, admirable people. I'd love to live in a country run entirely by USAID people. But, like the CIA, they deeply misunderstand third world people. Their Puritan universalism made them completely blind to the unique political requirements of the third world. And that caused major problems whenever they became involved in "democracy promotion" (i.e. political interference).

> Creative interpretation of the rules and using judges bought and paid for and installed on dubious grounds as ways to force through things that in any other administration would have you hollering

I've been on HN since the Obama administration, and you won't find a single post from me defending federal bureaucratic privilege under any administration. I simply do not believe that the bureaucracy is a branch of government in and of itself. The federal bureaucracy is not in our constitution--it is a European import from admirers of the Prussian bureaucracy: https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-german-stamp-on-wilsons-a....

> I'm deeply familiar with USAID. My dad worked for USAID contractors and my family came to the U.S. on an H1 visa from such a job. USAID did some great projects in Bangladesh. But it probably killed more people in the long run through political interference than it helped. USAID was one of the last bastions of Anglo-Protestants in the US, along with the CIA. Extremely upright, orderly, admirable people. I'd love to live in a country run entirely by USAID people. But, like the CIA, they deeply misunderstand third world people. Their Puritan universalism made them completely blind to the unique political requirements of the third world. And that caused major problems whenever they became involved in "democracy promotion" (i.e. political interference).

Is there anything that you won't twist to justify your hero's actions?

The hypocrisy on display here is off the scale.

> > are you going to even acknowledge that your previous deflections were completely incorrect

Elections certainly have consequences, and I wish acting outside constitutional scope had consequences, too. (maybe this specific issue is within scope or there is a reasonable question about it, but so many other issues seem unreasonably out of scope, IMHO)

Hopefully "treason has consequences" will be the meme in 2029.

I'd love to see that but I doubt it will happen. It didn't happen before when it should have either. Hope springs eternal I guess.

It actually did happen to quite a lot of people.

Well, let's see then. The day any of these characters goes behind bars I'll be celebrating.

i for one am pretty exhausted by "elections have consequences" being codeword for all previous rules systems norms obligations and institutions are totally ok to be thrown in the hopper. it's an exhausting and ridiculous shrug of the shoulder that in no way meets the moment, that is just the laziest "what can you do" nothing.

you'd hope that an internal insurrection against the United States would not be so ragingly popular. and part of the reason it's let slide, is so poorly seen as what it is is because of "elections have consequences". it's bad.

If you vote to throw the rules in the hopper the rules will be thrown in the hopper. That's just how it works.

I don't really respect this idea.

49.8% of people voted for "this". After he disavowed Project 2025 which was a bit of a boogeyman prospect.

But, turns out, yes, he was Mr 2025. He also didn't care at all about affordability, medical costs (big promises of reproductive care access for example), or anything else. He elected himself to ally with dictators and foreign powers, to rip up and destroy the government.

We'll see but I don't think the people voted for this. And I don't think that one election entitles you to usurp the power of the purse from Congress, to use the FCC for jawboning, to use the DOJ as a puppet, to go after non-violent student protestors, to... It just goes on and on.

The people who did vote for this have been lied to by the Republican controlled media. The powell memorandum is real, and these people have been sold lies. It's almost a miracle that the truth is just so in the face of the lies that the propaganda lies sold to tear down and destroy the USA are going to be so evidently false that even huge swarths of red America won't be able to keep their head in the sand and slumber through another round of billionaire insurrection with the same ease they've supported it for for decades.

We don't get to just tear everything down because of one election.

You’re making a should argument instead of a can argument.

Get and stay engaged in elections to prevent this. Norms and laws are only as powerful as the people in power.

> he disavowed Project 2025

GOP voters will somehow find the sex trafficking cabal in the non-existent basement of a pizza parlor and Obama's illuminati connections but when asked to connect Trump to P2025 it's, "he said he hasn't read it, case closed."

> also didn't care at all about affordability, medical costs

If only the 2020 money printer or the ACA "repeal and replace" that never happened could have warned us of this.

> ally with dictators and foreign powers

Kim, Putin, MBS... all his best friends/financiers before 2024.

> We'll see but I don't think the people voted for this.

They either voted for this or they can't be bothered to use recent memory to inform their voting decisions.

> I don't think that one election entitles you to usurp the power of the purse from Congress...

For some, he's exactly the president to land these questions in front of the Supreme Court, whose majority loves unitary executive and hates stare decisis. For others, he's allowed to try without consequence because SCOTUS declared presidential actions to have absolute immunity.

That's the thing about liars - they lie. I don't think you get to claim that voting for a liar isn't voting for a bunch of lies or that it's only voting for the things he lied and said he supported. It was well known he was a liar, and anyone who believed he wasn't in 2024 was deluding themselves.

The US is hardly alone in this. The UK voted to shoot themselves in the face, because brown people are scary.

Elections (and referenda) do indeed have consequences.

It is however perfectly reasonable to look further up the causal chain and say "propaganda influences elections".

The UK's Brexit fuck-up was somewhat different in that the referendum didn't have clear rules or objectives. No minimum majority was specified (e.g. referendum will often specify that there has to be >5% majority) and the "Brexit" was not at all specified which meant years of arguments about "soft" or "hard" Brexit.

I voted Remain, and it's not entirely fair to say that all pro-Brexiters were racist, but the racists did certainly vote that way.

I don’t want any of this to slide. I weep for the institutions that were destroyed, the faith in those institutions and our standing on the global stage. The apathy of voters, failures of Biden to step aside or the DNC to oust him in a timely manner and the alienation of the working class by the party that cares for them are all incredible failures. I dedicated thousands and thousands of dollars to attempt to stop DJTs reelection. “Elections have consequences” isn’t defeatest-it is a call to arms that people need to engage more in the election process.

But that is exactly what happened. He ran on deportations, ending the war in Ukraine, and Project 2025. He explicitly said he was going to do as much as possible through executive action. SCOTUS has already shown its deference to him.

And the American people elected Trump and gave him both houses. There is very, little that can be done until his term is up. Norms mean nothing when you re-elect the guy famous for creating the world of alternative facts.

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