BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 4.7.23//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMCommunityCalendar NAME:RMCommunityCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Economic Corner 15 - 02/17/2025 DTSTAMP:20250218T021854Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:197-7-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":troy@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n Financial Federalism\n\n\n\n This edition of the Economic Corner has three articles in the following chronological order\, after my thoughts\n\n 1) The legality of the Executive branch in the second term o f Schrumpf\n\n 2) The need for efficiency in the Federal Government and ho w it became ever more inefficient in the nineteen hundreds\n\n 3) The fail ure of presidencies before Schrumpfs first term from elephants or donkeys to diminish the federal governments bureaucracy while make it a better ope rator.\n\n\n\n Financially\, the Black populace in the usa has a heritage in the united states of America few mention\; it is the following. \n\n O nly the federal government in the united states of America has been positi ve in some course of time to the black populace in the usa as a bureaucrat ic body. I restate\, each town/city/county/state in the usa have provided negative environments\, legal or communal\, for black people\, averaging o ut their history. \n\n This means the federal government of the usa relat es to Black people in the usa\, especially Black Descended Of Enslaved (BD OS)\, other than non blacks\, especially whites\, in the usa. Whites of Eu ropean descent talk of the usa\, but tend to relate to the town\, the city \, the county\, the state because even though the federal government prote cts/defends the overall system\, the specificity of local law\, the flexib ility of local law\, provided and provides to whites of European descent o pportunity/safety/comfort. While for blacks \, said towns/cities/counties/ states provide horror/abuse/terror. \n\n\n\n Said heritage\, led to a fed eralism in the black populace in the usa unlike any other demographic in t he usa. Said federalism is an advocate of greater bureaucracy in the feder al government to undo state/county/city/town governments negativity. The m ore the federal government can watch/penalize the lower ranked municipalit ies the better. \n\n I think of two black women. Years ago\, one said to me privately\, she lives in the Midwest region\, that only the federal gov ernment has ever supported the black people in her region. It isn't imposs ible to live there\, she does\, but it is never welcoming\, never with eas e\, always with a barrier.  And more recently\, the other said on local n ews in NYC\, that maybe the states need to go in the united states of Amer ica. The only person I ever heard publicly say the states in the union nee d to all go\, was a black person\, for honesty's sake said person is a she . \n\n\n\n When I think of these two points\, it exposes why Whites despi se or fear or dislike ever expanding federal bureaucracy. White people's l ocal power requires local strength or local allowance. Black towns exist\, but they exist in White counties. Black counties exist \, but they exist in White States. So all majority black \, in populace\, municipal zones in the united states of America\, exist within a larger municipal zone lower than the federal government majority white. \n\n\n\n The situation of Bl ack Farmers proves this reality more than anything else. [ https://aalbc. com/tc/topic/11483-economiccorner014/ ] United States America system allo ws for local empowerment\, but for Blacks who never had control of a state within the union\, such local power has never existed. \n\n\n\n So\, wit h the Federalism in the Schrumpf era which is to diminish/lessen/delete an y place where Black presence has been or can be aided. For example\, the D epartment of Education is a large reason why in many states\, the funds to Black schools exist. States like Mississippi had for years and some argue still now managed ways to have black schools non funded. Not underfunded\ , none funded. If a school gets no government money but is a public school it is financially a private school. But the problem is\, the black popula ce in Mississippi for example don't have the financial means to support al l that children need. Ivy League schools still get federal money and they have huge private endowments so federal money shouldn't be deemed a negati ve when given to all white organizations in the usa. But living under a st ate\, like Mississippi\, influences black financial reality.\n\n\n\n The Q uestion is simple\, with no governmental aspect aiding Black people [no fe deral\, no state\, no county\, no city]\, what does the black business own er in the usa do? Black buying power has a serious problem\, most of the f irms have always been white. I challenge any Black person in the usa to go one whole month without buying something from a white owned firm. How do you eat? How do you buy clothes?  How do you wash clothes ? How can you d o this in a city? \n\n\n\n To the Articles below\n\n 1) I said to another the president of the usa already has a post at their privy\, it is called the white house chief of staff which came from the Presidents Personal Se cretary. So having Musk as a person at their privy isn't illegal. And the constitution doesn't say a limit exists to a person at the president's pri vy and by extension\, the D.O.G.E. is equivalent to the Staff at the White House Chief of Staff. The issue isn't illegality but change. Not change y ou need believe in but change you are living in. \n\n 2) Again\, a majori ty of whites in the 1960s despised the advance of federalism but the same whites local environments is what led the Kerner Commission\, with only on e black person in leadership\, to suggest to Lyndon B Johnson\, a complete overhaul of the usa is needed. Johnson wasn't amused but what the Kerner Commission exposed is the problem I say in hindsight.  [ Kerner Commissio n- https://1drv.ms/b/c/ea9004809c2729bb/Ea852rXxcnFEteIzm8I5Y0IBOmiGCYl_r T1lsPKEio-5mg?e=OiDxRo \; https://aalbc.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurra y/?status=2685&\;type=status ] \n\n 3) It is clear the impotency of P residents from Reagan to Biden\, old elephant or donkey\, to make the gove rnment more efficient opened the door to Scrumptf. Many said they would an d never did. They all kept growing the federal government and \, yes made some important administrative elements\, but the overall inefficiency grew and grew aided by a congress \, which in reflecting the multiracial popul ace of the usa\, became deadlocked.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Is Trump Acting Ill egally\n\n U.R.L.\n\n https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/constitutional-sch olar-on-whether-trumps-actions-are-executive-overreach\n\n\n\n VIDEO\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n \n\n TRANSCRIPT\n\n\n\n Geoff Bennett:\nThe first weeks of the Trump administration have brought dramatic changes to the shape\, scope a nd function of the federal government.\nOur new series On Democracy is tak ing a step back to look at big questions about the institutions\, norms an d laws that have shaped the country and the challenges they face today.\nI lya Shapiro is director of constitutional studies at the conservative-lean ing Manhattan Institute and the author of \"Lawless: The Miseducation of A merica's Elites.\"\nThanks for being here. Appreciate it.\n*\nIlya Shapiro \, Manhattan Institute:\nGreat to be with you.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nWell\, as we sit here and speak\, we have got another case that is raising questi ons about the rule of law in this new Trump era.\nAt least seven prosecuto rs and officials have stepped down over the DOJ order to dismiss corruptio n charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Danielle Sassoon\, who was Ma nhattan's top federal prosecutor\, she describes an explicit quid pro quo\ , whereby the Trump DOJ would dismiss the criminal charges against Adams i n exchange for his support for President Trump's agenda.\nWhat questions d oes all of this raise for you?\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nWell\, I think it's a di sagreement of political judgment between different prosecutors. The U.S. a ttorney disagrees with what her superiors say. The principals are denying that there's a quid pro quo\, so we don't quite have evidence of that. And Eric Adams\, for the last year or so\, has been moving in a direction to crack down on illegal immigration anyway.\nSo I don't know whether he'd be behaving differently in the first place. But\, ultimately\, this is a jud gment call. And the U.S. attorneys\, whether in the Southern District of N ew York\, which sometimes thinks of itself as its own sovereign\, Sovereig n District\, they sometimes call it\, doesn't get to make that call at the end of the day.\nAnd if the superiors decide that the underlying evidence is flimsy or the prosecution itself was politically motivated and doesn't serve the purposes of justice\, that's their call to make. And\, ultimate ly\, the voters will evaluate that.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nThe deputy A.G. in his letter explaining why the case against Adams should be dropped\, he c ited the need for Adams to help with Donald Trump's immigration policy. An d then Adams and the immigration czar\, Tom Homan\, were on FOX News this morning.\nAnd Homan said: \"If he doesn't come through\, I will be in his office up his butt saying\, where the hell is the agreement we came to?\"\ nI mean\, hardly anything about this is subtle. I mean\, how is this not a breach of…\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nI don't know if that agreement means the dropping of the prosecution. It might be an agreement of\, here's how we c an help New York\, because clearly there's a crisis\, a law and order cris is in New York\, and Adams wants to prolong his political career in some w ay.\nThe primary is coming up\, what have you\, and he wants to clean it u p. And so there's some agreement. It may involve the quid pro quo that eve ryone's talking about\, but it could just mean here's what I will do\, ope n up Rikers\, what have you\, and we will send you federal funds or we wil l send you more law enforcement. I don't know what the agreement might be. \nBut Adams wants to work with this administration on the illegal immigrat ion problem.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nSo\, in your view\, this is not\, so far as we know\, a fundamental breach of justice?\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nWe don't have — there's no evidence in the record\, a prosecutor would say\, to s ay that. There are allegations\, and you could make a case.\nBut on the fa ce of what has come out\, the dueling letters and what have you\, this is just a disagreement on prosecutorial discretion.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nPresi dent Trump\, the Trump administration\, they have frozen domestic spending \, frozen foreign aid without congressional approval. They have dismantled USAID\, threatened to dismantle the Education Department.\nThere are disp assionate observers who look at this and say that this is textbook executi ve overreach. How do you see it?\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nWell\, executive overr each is when you're creating new programs out of thin air\, like Barack Ob ama with his pen and phone government with DACA or DAPA or all of these ot her things\, or President Biden forgiving student loans that was blocked b y the Supreme Court\, said\, I will do it another way\, or vaccine mandate s\, all of these things that are creating new authorities that didn't exis t.\nHere\, they're putting a pause on spending. They're reorganizing the e xecutive branch\, which is within the executive's power.\n*\nGeoff Bennett :\nWhy not go through Congress\, as the framers intended? He's got a plian t House Republican majority\, a Senate majority as well.\nAnd if you legis late this\, the impact would be enduring. Why not?\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nWell \, it depends what the \"this\" is. I do hope that the Trump administratio n goes to Congress and asks for restructuring of these various agencies an d things like that\, because if it's all done through executive action\, t hen\, as we see\, you live by the executive action\, you die by it\, and t he next Democratic president will just reverse it.\nSo it would take an ac t of Congress to eliminate the USAID or to eliminate the Department of Edu cation\, but reorganizing certain things\, shifting funding priorities\, a uditing the accounting and the finances and things like that\, that all is fully within the purvey of the government\, including of DOGE.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nI want to ask you about Elon Musk\, because President Trump\, by all outward appearances\, has given him a fairly broad mandate.\nAny caus e for concern about the lack of checks on Musk's actions and the fact that he is in many ways the arbiter of his own conflicts of interest\, given h is very lucrative government contracts?\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nWell\, the conf lict of interest is a political story. I mean\, if the administration take s political hits for having a lax conflict of interest policy for Presiden t Trump himself\, for example\, that's a judgment call for the voters to m ake\, ultimately\, in the midterms coming up and what have you.\nMusk is a special government employee\, which means he has authority to run this. H e has his tech gurus\, these guys with spreadsheets and green eye shades a nd whatever else that are identifying money that looks like it's mismanage d\, misspent. Again\, not saying Congress had spent that on this\, but we' re not going to do that. That's not the case.\nWhether it's discretion by the agency\, they're looking at things that this administration might have different priorities.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nThere have been arguments\, as you well know\, that we are either in or that we're approaching a constitu tional crisis. I'd imagine you would disagree with that.\nBut what to you would signal a constitutional crisis? What to you would signal that this d emocratic experiment is in peril?\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nWell\, it's interesti ng that you say democratic experiment\, because when the executive branch\ , when the bureaucracy does not implement the directives of the political leadership that's responsible to the voters\, that's a problem.\nI mean\, a constitutional crisis is something like one branch going and doing thing s that are not within its authority that courts are telling it to stop and to do\, ignoring court orders. Trump has said he's not going to ignore co urt orders. He's going to appeal them and he's taking it to the Supreme Co urt. And\, almost certainly\, most of these things won't get to the Suprem e Court.\nCertain things\, he might win on. Certain things\, he might lose on\, but that's the process. The American people are not buying this lang uage that is simply an indication from the left that they don't like this restructuring of government\, the new priorities\, all of these certain th ings. Fair enough. That's a political argument to be had\, but this is not any sort of a constitutional crisis.\n*\nGeoff Bennett:\nIlya Shapiro wit h the Manhattan Institute\, thanks for coming in.\n*\nIlya Shapiro:\nThank you.\n\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n What should be made efficient in the federal go vernment?\n\n U.R.L.\n\n https://www.pbs.org/video/philip-k-howard-and-wil l-marshall-awjvp6/\n\n\n\n VIDEO\n\n\n\n \n\n TRANSCRIPT\n\n\n\n - Are Don ald Trump and Elon Musk dismantling the Deep State or doing something else ?\n\nThis week on \"Firing Line.\"\n\n- The people voted for major governm ent reform.\n\nAnd that's what people are gonna get.\n\nThey're gonna get what they voted for.\n\n- We've already found billions of dollars of abuse \, incompetence\, and corruption.\n\n- [Margaret] Some people are saying t hat Trump's newly-established Department of Government Efficiency is movin g fast and breaking things.\n\n- We have this unelected branch of governme nt\, which is the bureaucracy.\n\nSo it's just something we've gotta fix.\ n\n- [Margaret] But will this blitz on the bureaucracy really make governm ent more efficient?\n\n- So Musk is right\, in my view\, that it's broken\ , but he's not really focusing on fixing it.\n\n- [Margaret] Attorney and author Philip Howard has championed the cause of government efficiency for decades\, with books including \"The Death of Common Sense.\"\n\n- Well\, the tragically-missed opportunity here is that Elon Musk could have done us a lot of good.\n\n- [Margaret] Will Marshall is the founder and preside nt of the Progressive Policy Institute\, and has recently written that Dem ocrats need a DOGE of their own.\n\nI sat down with these two reform advoc ates before a student audience at Hofstra University to discuss what DOGE is getting right\, what it's getting wrong\, and whether America is careen ing toward a constitutional crisis.\n\n- [Announcer] \"Firing Line\" with Margaret Hoover is made possible\, in part\, by Robert Granieri\, Vanessa and Henry Cornell\, the Fairweather Foundation\, Peter and Mary Kalikow\, Cliff and Laurel Asness\, the Meadowlark Foundation\, and by the following .\n\nCorporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. - Philip Howard and Wi ll Marshall\, welcome to Hofstra University\, and this episode of \"Firing Line.\"\n\n- Thank you.\n\n- Listen\, Philip\, in November\, you called i n the Wall Street Journal for Elon Musk\, not to hobble government\, but t o make it work again.\n\nSince Trump established the Department of Governm ent Efficiency\, Musk has moved to gut USAID\, gained access to Treasury p ayment systems\, and has worked to eliminate the employment of tens of tho usands of federal workers.\n\nYou have spent your life thinking\, and writ ing\, and talking about how to make government work better.\n\nIs this wha t you had in mind?\n\n- No.\n\nMusk is focusing on cutting what government does that he thinks is stupid.\n\nHe's not focusing on changing and impro ving how government works\, which I think is the bigger opportunity.\n\nMo st of Americans think government needs major overhaul.\n\nSo Musk is right \, in my view\, that it's broken\, but he's not really focusing on fixing it.\n\nEfficiency means actually being responsive and delivering the goods to the public that the public needs.\n\n- How do you know he's not focuse d on fixing it?\n\n- Because that's not what he's doing.\n\nHe's focused o n cutting costs\, cutting people\, which I don't think is actually going t o add up to much in the way of cost.\n\nWhereas\, for example\, if he chan ged the way the Defense Department procured new weaponry\, he could save\, pick a number\, a third of the money that's spent\, by getting rid of all the red tape processes that take years and deliver poor products with too much delay.\n\n- Will\, you have recently written in The Hill that Democr ats need a plan for fixing government that's their own.\n\nYou said\, quot e\, \"Before Democrats dismiss DOGE as just MAGA trollery\, it's fair to a sk\, what is their plan for making government more efficient and effective ?\n\nInexplicably\, that plank is missing from the platform of the party t hat believes in active government.\"\n\nShould Democrats have their own ve rsion of DOGE?\n\n- Absolutely\, or not DOGE\, they should absolutely have their own plan to make government work better.\n\nThe public demand for t hat is palpable and it's nothing new.\n\nWe all know that trust in governm ent's been tanking\, really since the '60s.\n\n21% of people trust the fed eral government to do the right thing most of the time.\n\nSo to not have a set of ideas that is responsive to a public that wants deep change in go vernment is a sort of political malpractice.\n\n- Given the speed and ruth lessness\, perhaps efficiency\, at which DOGE is operating\, or which Elon Musk is operating\, will there be a government to reform?\n\n(Will chuckl es) - Yeah.\n\n- When he's finished.\n\n- It'll survive\, I mean\, what's happening now is that there are lawsuits proliferating all over the landsc ape.\n\nThere're gonna be a million checkpoints here\, and I think this is going to slow down.\n\nBut this is the shock and awe phase\, and I think we're gonna pass through it pretty quickly because reality is beginning to intrude.\n\nThese are real lives\, these are real functions.\n\nWe have d eep investments here.\n\nI'm a government reformer\, but this is not the w ay to go about it.\n\nElon Musk is a great entrepreneur\, but this isn't t he private sector\, this is the government\, and it's not an optional thin g.\n\nI don't have to buy a Tesla\, but I've gotta get services from my go vernment.\n\n- This isn't something you can change\, in my view\, by pruni ng the jungle.\n\nYou can't just clip\, here and there\, the red tape.\n\n You actually have to go back to a system which the framers contemplated in the Constitution\, where law provides a framework of goals\, and principl es\, and accountability\, and checks and balances\, but real people make c hoices\, and they're politically accountable.\n\nToday in Washington\, you can't find a real person who has authority to give a permit.\n\nAnd that' s the reason we never get permits.\n\n- How did we end up in a place where it was the process that hamstrung us?\n\n- It was a change in legal philo sophy.\n\nWe came out of the '60s feeling guilty for lots of good reasons. \n\nWe woke up to racism\, pollution\, lots of other things.\n\nSo we want ed to create a system where there were no more abuses of authority\, and i t just doesn't work.\n\nNow you have no authority\, and so you have a gove rnment that's increasingly paralyzed by the kind of stuff that Will's writ ten about and others\, by this red tape state.\n\nAnd the goal is not to\, in my view\, to get rid of government.\n\nThe goal is actually to pull it back so we can do it\, pull the law back so it can do its job.\n\n- Your solution is for government to unshackle itself from laws and regulations t o empower individuals to make decisions and use their judgment.\n\n- Withi n the framework of law.\n\nAnd courts would only get involved when an offi cial transgresses those boundaries.\n\n- So then\, how are individuals hel d accountable?\n\n- Well\, any way you want\, but by someone.\n\n- For the ir judgment.\n\n- By someone above them.\n\n- No\, no\, no\, that's where we get hamstrung by this process\, right?\n\nBecause there's so much proce ss\, and the process is ultimately what takes any sort of agency away from individuals to make these decisions.\n\n- That's right.\n\nSo if you go t o a\, say to give a permit for a transmission line\, you can't have 16 age ncies bickering over whether to give the permit.\n\nOne agency has to have the authority to make the decision\, and that's subject to the approval o f the White House in a democracy.\n\nToday\, you get 16 agencies bickering about it around the table\, and it goes on for years.\n\n- And it's uncle ar who has the ultimate authority.\n\n- Well\, no one has the ultimate aut hority.\n\n- Well\, so then isn't this what Musk is trying to fix?\n\nAnd how do you keep Musk?\n\nI mean\, if the idea is to give an individual the authority to make the decision\, isn't that what Musk is doing?\n\n- Well \, Musk is taking the authority himself to tear apart agencies\, but he's not trying to change the operating structure to give anybody else the auth ority.\n\nThe problem with government is that the people inside it have be en disempowered by all this process and all these procedures.\n\nThey're a lso not accountable\, by the way.\n\nSo the American public is.\n\n- Musk has a bad theory.\n\nThe theory is that there's waste everywhere\, there's abuse\, there's fraud.\n\nHe calls AID\, our foreign aid agency\, a crimi nal organization.\n\nNow I have my criticisms of AID\, they could be refor med\, should be\, but they're basically doing good humanitarian work aroun d most of the world\, they're not a criminal organization.\n\nBut why does this freelance billionaire get to come and superimpose his judgements on what's working and what's not?\n\nThere's no theory of change here.\n\nThe re's no good analysis of where we're failing.\n\nIt's just he's bringing t he entrepreneur's methodology\, which is I'm gonna cut everything by 60%\, wipe the slate clean\, and we're gonna start over\, and that'll yield eff iciencies.\n\nIt's not the way it works in the public sector.\n\n- Right\, and what's\, where's the vision for the day after these changes?\n\nHow's government gonna work better after Musk finishes going through all these agencies?\n\nAnd so again\, I think what's missing here is not the diagnos is that it's broken.\n\nIt is broken\, it is paralyzed\, and broken\, and wasteful\, and not delivering things.\n\nBut the proper cure is to actuall y let it do its job.\n\nPull back the red tape\, let there be permits\, le t Defense Department officials use their judgment and be accountable up th e chain of authority for whether they do a good job or not.\n\n- We have f etishized process\, and legal obstacles\, and veto points\, and everybody having their say.\n\nAnd it all adds up to a retreat from the exercise of public authority.\n\nBut that's not what Musk is talking about.\n\nHe's ju st getting rid of whole agencies he doesn't happen to like.\n\nIt's all on a whim\, there's no analysis\, there's no predicate being laid for any of these changes.\n\n- Both of you have been critical of certain processes\, review processes.\n\nOne of them is environmental review processes.\n\nYo u've both written about how environmental review processes actually have i nhibited government efficiency\, and in doing so\, have actually made outc omes for the environment worse.\n\nHow do you account for environmental pr iorities in a more efficient way that doesn't inhibit a project from actua lly moving forward?\n\n- Well\, I mean\, the problem here is more politica l.\n\nWe have a lot of folks on the Democratic side who do not want to tak e away the permitting.\n\nThey don't want to relax the permitting process because they think that's their best protection against environmentally ru inous things.\n\nBut what they don't understand is that if you can't upgra de and modernize your energy grid\, you're building in higher pollution.\n \nYou're not laying the framework for a cleaner grid.\n\nAnd that's happen ing all over the country.\n\nIt's not just the grid\, it's everything on t he environmental side.\n\n- Well\, delays are bad for the environment.\n\n We need new transmission lines to take power from the solar\, wind farms i n the Midwest to Chicago.\n\nWell\, you can't get a permit for it.\n\nAnd every permit is not\, it's not a question of legal compliance\, it's a que stion of trade-offs.\n\nAre the benefits of the transmission line worth th e harm of cutting through a pristine forest?\n\nThat's not a legal questio n\, that's a political question.\n\n- And it's a judgment question.\n\n- I t's a judgment call.\n\nAnd we've\, and so the purpose of environmental re view\, as it was initially enacted\, was to have a few months of review in dozens of pages that would alert the public to the fact that there are th ese issues that are political in nature that are gonna be decided.\n\nInst ead\, it's become this years-long\, no pebble left unturned kind of proces s that virtually never\, never ends.\n\nAnd we have to make trade off judg ements in order for the country to move forward.\n\n- You've written\, Phi lip\, that\, quote\, \"Rebuilding government requires not just a wrecking ball\, but trust.\"\n\nPolls suggests that Musk is losing the public's tru st.\n\nIn a recent YouGov poll\, only 13% of Americans\, and 26% of Republ icans\, said they want Musk to have a lot of influence in the Trump admini stration.\n\nSo can an initiative like DOGE survive if it doesn't have the trust of the American people\, Philip?\n\n- One\, no\, and two\, it also can't survive if he doesn't have the trust of people who work for governme nt.\n\nOne of the biggest problems in government today is if you make a de cision to give a permit\, there's always somebody who doesn't like it.\n\n - Yeah.\n\n- So they will attack you.\n\nSo in my view\, what senior civil servants need is\, not to live in fear\, but to have cover for important decisions.\n\nThey need to be\, to feel that the people in charge\, Musk o r whomever\, will actually protect them when they make decisions.\n\nAnd s o no organization works in an atmosphere of distrust\, whether it's govern ment or society.\n\n- We need radical disruptors.\n\nWe need 'em in the en trepreneurial sectors of our economy\, that's what we want.\n\nBut that's not what we\, that's not how you fix government's problems\, for the reaso ns we just talked about.\n\nAnd Elon Musk doesn't really know what he's tr ying to do.\n\nHe wants to cut $2 trillion in spending.\n\nWell\, that's a nice goal.\n\nIf you got rid of every single federal employee\, 2.3 milli on of them\, you would cut 5% of public spending and you wouldn't come any where near that goal.\n\nSo he doesn't even really have an understanding\, I think\, of the end game.\n\nThe end game seems to be here just disrupti on for its own sake\, sowing fear\, telling employees they're no longer wa nted\, tell 'em to stay home\, sort of putting down whole agencies as wort hless.\n\nAnd again\, pretending that the problem is waste\, fraud\, and a buse\, which is a really kind of simple-minded understanding of what's wro ng with government.\n\nHe thinks that there's just waste in large quantiti es lying around that he's gonna excise through this radical surgery.\n\n- There's one area with hundreds of billions of dollars in savings that requ ires major overhaul\, which is in the healthcare administration area.\n\nA nd if Musk and Trump really wanted to save big amounts of money\, they wou ld simplify the healthcare reimbursement and regulatory system\, because 3 0% of the healthcare dollar goes to administration\, which is over $1 mill ion per every American doctor in red tape.\n\nThat system is crazy.\n\nAnd it needs to be completely\, basically replaced.\n\n- Well\, there is wast e all across the government\, okay.\n\nBut it isn't sitting there in large piles that you can just go into a room and find.\n\nYou have\, it's like Elaine Kamarck\, who was the re-inventor-in-chief for Bill Clinton\, said\ , \"It's like fat marbled in the steak.\"\n\nAnd so the point is\, you hav e to go and find it.\n\nAnd the people that know where it is are the peopl e who work in government.\n\nSo if you go in there and you attack them and say they're worthless\, and they're idiots\, and they have to get going a nd pack up\, and we're gonna shut their agency down because we don't need it\, and everything they've been doing for 15 years is worthless\, well\, they're not gonna be very cooperative to you.\n\nSo if you were serious ab out trying to find pockets of waste\, or even fraud\, these are the people that could help you find it.\n\nSo again\, it's just a marker of seriousn ess to me.\n\nIf you were serious about changing government\, you wouldn't go about it by attacking everybody in sight.\n\n- As Will said\, it can't be done by just by amputation.\n\nIt needs to be done somewhat more surgi cally.\n\nAnd I will say that the biggest supporters of my somewhat radica l reform efforts have been the senior civil servants.\n\nThey want more au thority to manage the civil servants below them.\n\nThey want more authori ty to cut through the process and get permits.\n\nThey actually want to do these things.\n\nAnd they exist in this red tape jungle that doesn't allo w them to.\n\n- Why do you think that is?\n\nWhy do you think they are the ones who are most eager to see reform?\n\n- These are the senior executiv e service\, which are the top civil servants\, are people who have general ly devoted their lives to public service and are experts in specific areas .\n\nAnd they actually get\, their life work is making.\n\n- You're saying they're serious people.\n\n- These agencies happen and deliver the goods\ , and they can't do what they feel is necessary.\n\n- Over the course of A merican history\, there have been several attempts to reform government\, starting in 1883 with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act that establis hed the modern civil service.\n\nAnd there was the Taft Commission\, there were two Hoover Commissions\, the Grace Commission under Ronald Reagan's presidency\, and then of course\, the National Performance Review\, in whi ch you participated\, and you both contributed under President Clinton's p residency.\n\nWhat can Elon Musk learn\, if he wanted to learn from Americ an history\, from these previous efforts?\n\n- Well\, what I would hope he would learn is that he's right that periodically government has to be reo rganized to look at if it's meeting its goals and to change how it meets i ts goal.\n\nWhat's happened through history is\, actually\, you've had cha nges in operating philosophy over the years.\n\nThe last real change in ph ilosophy was in the 1960s.\n\n- So what was the change in that governing p hilosophy\, Phil?\n\n- The change in philosophy was don't trust anyone to use their judgment\, because human judgment is fallible.\n\nAnd we need to create a new system that will guarantee that all choices are correct.\n\n Let everyone who complains have a hearing.\n\nAnd the result of that is pa ralysis.\n\nSo I think the solution is to actually change our operating ph ilosophy and go back to the one that the framers contemplated\, which is o ne based on human responsibility.\n\nLaw sets goals\, law sets guardrails\ , law sets a hierarchy of authority to make sure that people don't do stup id things\, but people make decisions.\n\nLaw can't govern.\n\nAnd we've c reated this massive system over the\, only in the last 50 years\, on the p remise that actually we can make government into a kind of a software prog ram.\n\n- Will\, do you agree with Phil's diagnosis of the governing philo sophy that changed in the '60s.\n\n- I think I partially agree with it.\n\ nIt clearly did.\n\nWe got a lot more liberal process-oriented attempts to protect citizens against abuses of government power\, which was\, governm ent was getting bigger\, and it was intruding itself in more parts of Amer ican life.\n\nAnd in the '60s\, we radically expanded government under the Great Society\, and we have been doing that ever since.\n\nAnd so it just became a more intrusive thing with tentacles everywhere.\n\nAnd that just built this kind of resistance\, has built antagonism from the public that now saw government trying to do too much\, trying to spend too much\, and trying to direct them too much.\n\nAnd so I do think it has to do with th e scope of government's responsibilities\, and we need to have a serious c onversation about that.\n\n- We have a question from one of our Hofstra Un iversity students\, Mark Lussier.\n\n- Hello\, my name is Mark\, I'm from Connecticut\, and one of my senators\, Chris Murphy\, said that we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis.\n\nI wanna know if you agree\, and t he step\, and I also want to know the steps that the other two branches ca n take to address that\, and their odds of succeeding at addressing it.\n\ n- Are we in a constitutional crisis?\n\nLet me add to that\, actually.\n\ nWhere are the other branches of government?\n\nWe know that the judiciary is exerting itself\, but why couldn't these reforms be legislated and the n signed in by the executive branch?\n\n- That's a very good question.\n\n - Are we in a constitutional crisis?\n\n- Oh\, yes\, we are.\n\nI mean\, I wrote a piece this week about ruling by decree.\n\nIt's un-American\, the re's no basis for it in American history and no basis for it in the Consti tution.\n\nThe president can't just make policy willy nilly across the who le scope of what federal government does.\n\nThat's why the courts are get ting involved.\n\nWe've got a raft of lawsuits.\n\nI think a lot of this i s gonna slow down.\n\nBut the point is the courts are doing their job.\n\n Who's not doing its job is Congress\, and it's because it's under Republic an control.\n\nHe's got them absolutely cowed\, and they're not raising ob jection to his taking over the power of the purse\, which is clearly deleg ated to the legislative branch.\n\nSo yes\, that's a crisis.\n\n- Phil\, d o you think we're in a crisis?\n\n- Well\, we're certainly building toward s one\, and now we have Trump saying that maybe the courts don't have auth ority.\n\nAnd if they really disavow court rulings\, then we will have a c onstitutional crisis.\n\n- Do you have anything you wanna follow up on wit h\, Mark?\n\nI wanna make sure you're fully answered because you had a cou ple of different questions.\n\n- Actually\, one piece was what's the likel ihood of them succeeding and like being able to address those concerns of a crisis\, if we get to that point?\n\n- Well\, hey Phil\, you said we're getting there.\n\nYou think we're there\, you said we're getting there\, e specially if they just defy the court orders\, then we'll be there.\n\n- R ight.\n\n- So then what?\n\n- Well\, here's what scares me.\n\nSuppose he defies the courts\, in other words\, the court's are the only thing that a re\, is the only source of resistance now to Trump's imperial will.\n\nWha t if he just says\, \"No\, I'm not gonna do what the court's prescribed.\" \n\nThe other possibility is that the higher courts\, the Supreme Court\, might side with him on some of these issues.\n\n- Well\, you know\, I do t hink they're gray areas\, and I've written about this in large arguments a nd such about the scope of executive power.\n\nBut whatever gray areas the re are\, you still have to respect the rule of law in this country.\n\nAnd I believe that the rule of law is a foundation that most Americans believ e in\, and that once you abandon it or disavow it\, then we really are in trouble as a society\, and we have to sort of come together and do somethi ng different.\n\n- Let me ask you both this.\n\nIn 1990\, William F. Buckl ey Jr's original \"Firing Line\" hosted a debate that was titled\, \"Gover nment Is Not the Solution\, It's the Problem.\"\n\nAnd of course\, borrowi ng from Ronald Reagan's line\, listen to this defense of government from n one other than George McGovern.\n\n- This debate proposition reminds me of Groucho Marx's observation that marriage is the chief cause of divorce.\n \n(audience laughs) The answer is not to abolish marriage\, but to strive for better marriages.\n\nAnd so it is with government.\n\nGovernment has c aused some problems\, no question about that.\n\nAnd I've spoken out again st some of those problems.\n\nBut it has also come up with some inspired s olutions.\n\n- Right\, so the question is\, is DOGE's attempt to fix gover nment an example of getting rid of divorce by abolishing marriage?\n\n- I' d say\, so far\, yes.\n\nAnd while it's true that\, and Musk is right\, th e government isn't working very well\, to the point that government is the problem\, government should get out of people's daily lives.\n\nI mean\, much of the resentment that got Trump elected was government telling peopl e how to talk\, how to get along in the workplace\, how you run the local school.\n\nAnd I do think government is the problem when it gets in our da ily lives.\n\nBut I think government\, in a crowded\, global\, really fear ful environment of warring powers and such\, government is incredibly impo rtant to make government strong.\n\nWe can't be strong abroad if we're wea k at home.\n\nSo we need to make government work better\, not get rid of i t.\n\n- Will.\n\n- Well\, you know\, the problem with what Mr. McGovern sa id is that it's not about whether you like government or you dislike gover nment.\n\nI mean\, it's a necessary evil\, as Jefferson said\, we're gonna have it.\n\nAnd so the question is how can you make it a better servant o f the popular will\, but also how you constrain what it does so that it do esn't try to do everything\, which when it tries to do that\, it doesn't d o anything well.\n\n- Last question to both of you.\n\nIf you had one piec e of advice you would offer to Elon Musk to get it right\, if there were s till an opportunity for him to correct course\, what would it be?\n\n- I'd say focus on how government makes decisions.\n\nIf you can streamline gov ernment decisions\, give people authority to take responsibility\, you wil l save countless billions\, probably hundreds of billions of dollars\, and make government much more responsive to public needs.\n\n- Will.\n\n- Wel l\, the tragically-missed opportunity here is that Elon Musk could have do ne us a lot of good.\n\nIf Trump had sent him over to the Pentagon\, for e xample\, and said\, \"Modernize this.\n\nLet's get software\, let's get mo dern IT\, let's get AI working.\"\n\nThis is something he actually knows h ow to do.\n\nAnd what he's been set on is tasks that he doesn't know how t o do\, doesn't understand even how to define the problems properly.\n\n- O kay\, so that's your analysis.\n\nWhat's your advice for Elon Musk?\n\n- G o back to the private sector and leave us a alone\, please.\n\n- All right \, all right.\n\n(laughs) With that\, Will Marshall and Phil Howard\, than k you for joining me on \"Firing Line\,\" here at Hofstra University.\n\n- Thank you.\n\n- Thank you.\n\n(audience applauds) - [Announcer] \"Firing Line\,\" with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by Robert Granieri\ , Vanessa and Henry Cornell\, the Fairweather Foundation\, Peter and Mary Kalikow\, Cliff and Laurel Asness\, the Meadowlark Foundation\, and by the following.\n\nCorporate funding is provided by Stephens Inc. (intense mus ic) (intense music continues) (gentle music) (peaceful music) - You're wat ching PBS.\n\n\n\n\n \n\n Executive Power usage\n\n URL\n\n https://www.pb s.org/newshour/show/capehart-and-continetti-on-trump-pushing-the-limits-of -executive-power\n\n VIDEO\n\n must click the link above to see\n\n TRANSC RIPT\n\n\n\n Geoff Bennett:\n\nFrom Elon Musk gaining unprecedented access to sensitive government information\, to Democrats trying to build what t hey call a bigger and better party\, we turn tonight to the analysis of Ca pehart and Continetti.\n\nThat's Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and Matthew Continetti with the American Enterprise Institute. D avid Brooks is away this evening.\n\nIt's good to see you both.\n\nMatthew Continetti\, American Enterprise Institute:\n\nGood to see you.\n\nGeoff Bennett:\n\nSo\, Donald Trump and his allies are making quick progress tow ard their stated goal of the deconstruction of the administrative state. W e have got takeovers and the hollowing out of major government agencies\, offering severance agreements to government workers\, pausing federal gran ts and loans\, which\, of course\, is now tied up in the courts.\n\nJonath an\, are the shockwaves being felt across the government signs of a super committed new administration shaking up the status quo\, or are we witness ing the full assault on the limits of executive power?\n\nJonathan Capehar t:\n\nBoth\, Geoff. Both.\n\nRemember\, Donald Trump campaigned. He told u s this is what he was going to do. Project 2025 is all about doing what is happening right now. And so they are trying to deconstruct\, as I think o f Steve Bannon\, who said\, the administrative state.\n\nAnd they are — as I said last week\, President Trump and Elon Musk\, in particular\, are taking a wrecking ball to the federal government by sowing\, sure\, chaos and confusion and fear. But he's following through on what he promised to do.\n\nGeoff Bennett:\n\nHow do you see it\, Matt?\n\nMatthew Continetti:\ n\nI think Jonathan's right. This was a promise made\, promised kept\, as they like to say in Trump world.\n\nAnd I think what's important to unders tand about Trump and how he's going about these initial weeks is\, he want s to deliver results. Trump always feels as though the political class tha t preceded him talked a big game\, but never accomplished anything.\n\nSo we had the Grace Commission during Reagan. We had Al Gore's reinventing go vernment. We had the commissions dealing with the debt and taxes during th e Obama years. Nothing happened. And so here he is. Elon Musk says he want s to treat the federal government like a new acquisition. Well\, Donald Tr ump says\, go for it. Let's see what happens.\n\nGeoff Bennett:\n\nWhat ab out the question Democrats are raising\, Jonathan? Where are the guardrail s? Who's going to stop any of this? Democrats in Congress obviously don't have any power. Republicans in Congress are moving in lockstep with this a dministration.\n\nThe courts have stepped in where they deem appropriate\, but obviously can't keep up with the velocity of the Trump administration . Is there any guard against his instinct to wield\, to really claim and w ield expansive power?\n\nJonathan Capehart:\n\nWell\, see\, here's the thi ng.\n\nRight now\, the courts are the only guardrail. And I think people n eed to understand that the courts operate on a timetable that is completel y different than the rest of us. And we just have to appreciate that. The fact that citizens and lawmakers and organizations have gone to court to s top President Trump on a whole host of things\, from birthright citizenshi p to the buyout plans\, that is right now sort of the\, for lack of a bett er saying\, court of last resort.\n\nIn the old days\, Geoff and Matthew\, it used to be that Congress would be the backstop\, would be the entity\, the legislative branch standing up for its prerogatives and saying\, Mr. President\, no\, we are the ones who decide what agencies come and go. We are the ones who decide what the budget will be.\n\nBut\, instead\, the MA GA Republicans who were there in Congress\, from Speaker Johnson on down\, they're happy. They're happy to go along with what President Trump and El on Musk are doing\, which is why they are silent on a whole host of things that even 10 years ago would have had Congress up in arms.\n\nGeoff Benne tt:\n\nHow do you view Congress really abdicating their role\, ceding thei r power to the executive?\n\nMatthew Continetti:\n\nWell\, I think this pr ocess of ceding power to the executive is decades in the making\, and it's bipartisan.\n\nCongress has really just become an investigatory body that delegates tremendous authority to the executive branch of government and the bureaucracy. And we now see the results when you have Trump come in hi s second term wanting to leave a profoundly changed government in his wake when he departs the Oval Office.\n\nAnd you see that\, because of acts of Congress\, Congress' own denial of its role\, the president has enormous power to wield. And let's remember\, when President Obama said he had a pe n and a phone\, the first Trump administration used a lot of executive ord ers. Joe Biden tried to cancel student debt through executive order.\n\nTh is process we're seeing is long in the making. And I think one reason Wash ington is stunned is that you have an outsider in Elon Musk actually punch ing the delete button on some of these programs.\n\nGeoff Bennett:\n\nJona than\, Matthew raised the question I was going to ask you\, because that's what I have heard from Republicans this past week\, that Democrats can't in good faith criticize Donald Trump\, when Joe Biden tried to unilaterall y without Congress waive $400 billion worth of student loan debt. And when the Supreme Court said no\, you can't do that\, he basically shrugged and then tried to do it via piecemeal approach.\n\nJonathan Capehart:\n\nThis is like comparing apples and cannonballs.\n\nWhat we're seeing coming fro m the Trump administration is executive orders uprooting and upending the federal government. And what makes this all the more galling and terrifyin g for a lot of people is that he has delegated a lot of power to someone w ho was elected to no office\, to someone who was not confirmed by the Sena te.\n\nHe is accountable to no one\, except for maybe\, except for maybe P resident Trump. And President Trump has already said\, well\, he will only do things that we want him to do. Well\, so far\, Elon Musk is doing ever ything that Donald Trump wants to do.\n\nThat is what is so terrifying abo ut this moment\, is that you have an unelected person\, who also happens t o be the wealthiest person in the world\, and also the wealthiest person i n the world who owns a huge social media megaphone\, and is able to manipu late the information that the people on that huge platform receive.\n\nTha t's what is so dangerous about what is happening now. And as we're trying to compare President Biden's executive order on student loans and what Don ald Trump is doing\, Donald Trump is destroying. President Biden signed an executive order and\, yes\, pushed the limits of executive action\, but t o the benefit of people who were drowning in student debt.\n\nHe did it in order to help people\, not to destroy the government that the American pe ople depend on for a whole host\, a whole host of things.\n\nGeoff Bennett :\n\nLet's shift our focus back to Elon Musk for a second\, because\, Jona than\, we actually have the sound that you mentioned.\n\nHere is how Presi dent Trump responded to a reporter's question about whether he gave Elon M usk any red lines.\n\nQuestion:\n\nIs there anything you have told Elon Mu sk he cannot touch?\n\nDonald Trump\, President of the United States: Well \, we haven't discussed that much. I will tell him to go here\, go there. He does it. He's got a very capable group of people\, very\, very\, very\, very capable. They know what they're doing. They will ask questions and t hey will see immediately if somebody gets tongue-tied that they're either crooked or don't know what they're doing.\n\nGeoff Bennett:\n\nSo\, Matt\, it would appear that Elon Musk has a fairly broad mandate\, in that it's not spelled out at all\, I mean\, if you take into account what President Trump is saying there.\n\nMatthew Continetti:\n\nI think President Trump h as told Elon Musk\, let's change the government\, let's slim it down\, let 's dramatically reduce the federal work force. And if you need to go fast and break things\, as they say in Silicon Valley\, to do that\, that's fin e.\n\nI will say that if Elon Musk were the health care czar or the energy czar coming up with big plans for government spending or to combat global warming\, I'd think there'd be a lot less uproar in Washington\, D.C. It' s the fact that he has the goal of changing the federal government and lim iting it\, at a time when we have record deficits and debts\, that I think is angering a lot of people who are invested in the current system.\n\nGe off Bennett:\n\nIn the time that remains\, I want to return to this open q uestion about the path forward for Democrats\, because\, Jonathan\, you wr ote a column for The Washington Post this past week\, the thesis of which is that the Democratic Party's issue isn't rooted in policy. It's rooted i n perception.\n\nTell us more about that and whether Ken Martin\, the newl y elected head of the DNC\, can effectively change that.\n\nJonathan Capeh art:\n\nWell\, the perception of the Democratic Party is it's filled with elites who only care about niche issues and don't listen to the rest of us .\n\nAnd\, as everyone knows\, in a lot of instances\, perception is reali ty. I was one of three people\, MSNBC anchors\, who hosted the last DNC fo rum. And there were two instances that happened that sort of put this perc eption in high relief. One was a question asking for a commitment to dedic ated seats for transgender folks within the party to be — the serve with in the party in the governing structure.\n\nAnother was protesters who wer e loudly screaming about climate change and getting big money out of polit ics\, something that everyone on that stage was for. And yet no one wanted to listen to what they had to say.\n\nAnd what was great about — good a bout those two moments that were instructive\, Faiz Shakir\, a friend of \ "PBS News Hour\,\" was the only person the stage who did not raise his han d on the transgender question. There was also one on the question for seat s for Muslim DNC members.\n\nHe said\, I don't think we should be dividing people up by identity. We should focus on people who are up for the missi on and the program of the DNC and have them bring their identity to the ta ble.\n\nHe's absolutely right. And then with the protesters\, Jason Paul s aid\, this is the way people in the country view the Democratic Party\, an d that is our problem.\n\nThat's why I say the policy isn't the problem. D emocrats have policies that address the American people's issues. It's the perception. And that is what Ken Martin has to do. And we're about to fin d out if he's able to do it\, to change that perception.\n\nGeoff Bennett: \n\nJonathan Capehart and Matthew Continetti\, thanks again for being with us. I appreciate it.\n\nJonathan Capehart:\n\nThanks\, Geoff.\n\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Prior Economic Corner : https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11483-econ omiccorner014/\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n Financial Federalism\n\n\n\n POST U RL\n\n https://aalbc.com/tc/topic/11488-economiccorner015/\n\n\n\n PRIOR E DITION\n\n\n\n https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/195-economic-corner-14-02 152025/\n\n\n\n NEXT EDITION\n\n\n\n https://aalbc.com/tc/events/event/199 -economic-corner-16-02222025/\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250217 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR