That’s completely untrue. The bureaucracy follows the rules Congress provides, and there are many checks on their power built into those processes both internal and via the courts.
The reason DOGE are asserting that they don’t need to follow the law is because the cuts they want to make are themselves in violation of the law, not because there’s no other way to do it.
Many such bureaus have been established over the years that have extralegal powers existing basically outside the Constitution. I’m thinking of the NLRB, CFPB, FBI, IRS, and several others.
We as a society have a consensus that we need such agencies to manage the hugely complex country that we have become, but that doesn’t necessarily mean these bureaucratic organizations are themselves properly managed.
Years ago, I read about a man who the IRS was trying to levy extensive fines on. After five years of court battles, he committed suicide.
Perhaps this was an extreme case, but there is nonetheless an important question that arises out of this tragedy: does the government exist to serve the people, or do the people exist to serve the government?
I believe our colonial era checks and balances no longer protect us from a bureaucracy that is automatically funded by the Treasury, that the President has limited control over, and that only an act of Congress can change.
In an era when no one political party has enough control to enact legislation (i.e. a filibuster proof majority), the bureaucracy is effectively out of control and the only real way it can be reformed is by uncovering waste and corruption.
You’re shifting the goalposts again. You not liking them doesn’t mean that they’re unconstitutional, it means you have a problem with how Congress has exercised its constitutional authority.
No it absolutely doesn't. The "permanent bureaucracy" as you call it (or people just doing their jobs as I call it) is the most compliant part of government to checks and balances.
I'm guessing what Trump is doing is not the most efficient way to do it, but isn't he trying to get rid of the "permanent bureaucracy" - the people responsible for creating policies and spend money, that are not elected and don't have a term limit?
That idea of an unelected policy maker is a work of political fiction. There are two types of federal employee: political appointees and senior executives, who do not have job security, and the merit-based civil servants who have job protection in the sense that they can only be fired for cause. All of them can act only within the bounds that Congress defines – that’s why there are lawsuits about things like whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant because the EPA can’t regulate outside of what the law authorizes.
