Angina Monologue 24

Snip. Snip. … Snip-snip.

His Majesty is allergic to orchids, so he has taken up cultivating bonsai instead. He is pretty good at it, except that he has a little bit of a tendency to overprune.

According to conservative pundits, its authors, and the text of the Constitution itself, the federal government was supposed to be a government of few and enumerated powers. If you take that idea seriously, then there are entire Cabinet departments whose existence violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution. [Snip… snip …]

I think I shall add to our campaign platform a promise to eliminate those departments and reorganize the rest such that there is a specific enumerated power in the Constitution to which each department corresponds. While I’m at it, I’ll combine redundant departments. The result will be an administrative structure that is far less cumbersome, more efficient, and sticks to the point.

Let’s go through the list, shall we?

Department of State. This one seems pretty solid. The states are forbidden to make their own treaties with foreign powers, and provisions are made for the President to negotiate treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. Seems like a fairly clear keep.

This is not, of course, to say that the department couldn’t use some serious shaking up, but those details can be tended to later.

Department of the Treasury. Inasmuch as the federal government is granted power to raise taxes, and money obviously is required in some quantity to pay for other legitimate federal activities, this one also seems like a solid keep.

I do think we could score big political points by abolishing the entire IRS, but we need the taxes and somebody has to be in charge of collecting them. I do like the cynical touch of calling it a “service”.

Department of Defense. Since diplomacy, and diplomacy by other means, are arguably the prime functions of the federal government, this is another obvious keep alongside the Department of State.

I would like to amend the Constitution to allow appropriations for the Army to extend beyond two years. In the modern age, it’s clear we have to have a standing army and it might as well be planned with a longer-range view. Besides, even with recent advances, you can’t raise a clone to maturity that quickly.

Department of Justice. Since there are areas of law delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, it seems clear that there must be a corresponding enforcement arm, and there is wisdom in keeping this arm carefully separate from the armed forces. Another keep.

Department of the Interior. Now things start getting interesting. [Snip.] The Constitution clearly anticipates that the federal government will own real property, and the Department of the Interior ostensibly exists to maintain these properties. But, you know? At one time the U.S. had very substantial territories contiguous with the existing states, and it made sense for there to be a department to manage them. Those territories are all organized into states now. There is no excuse, really, for the federal government to continue to own property that isn’t being used for some Constitutionally enumerated purpose. And it seems to me that management of those properties rightly falls to the department in charge of whatever that enumerated purpose is. [Snip … snip …] I think we’ll abolish this one.

Department of Agriculture. There are no powers enumerated to the federal government over agriculture. None whatsoever. An obvious abolish.

This will, incidentally, abolish most of the federal welfare program — the greatest example of an enormous federal program for which there is no constitutional enumeration of power whatsoever.

I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting some of the national parks, forests, and monuments in New Mexico. I shudder to think of administration of those properties being turned over to the state of New Mexico. A third-world region of a first-world country.

I suggest that the federal government needs to quit subsidizing the government of New Mexico. Which is what you have when much of the income and most of the land in the state are under federal control. If the state discovers it can’t hack it, it can always dissolve itself and let the federal government run it as a territory, up front and honest.

I also appreciate having a uniform national standard of food safety, given that so much of the food supply crosses state lines.

That function properly belongs to the Department of Commerce.

Speaking of which … this is a clear keep, notwithstanding the crying need for its reform. The Constitution clearly enumerates the federal government power over interstate commerce.

Granted, this has been grossly abused in the wake of one of the most cynical decisions ever handed down by SCOTUS. The commerce clause is now interpreted to have the flexibility of the Ross sisters and the breadth of Michael Moore. We will restrict control over commerce to actual goods and services that actually cross state lines. The rule will be conceptually simple: We will suppose that every DoC agent is deployed with one foot in one state and the other in the next state. If it is not possible for any such agent to see a good or service cross in front of him, or to pick up the electronic or optical signal associated with the service crossing in front of him, then he has no authority to regulate that good or service.

The Department of Labor is the clearest exercise of raw political power in opposition to the framework of the Constitution in the entire federal structure. Abolish with extreme prejudice. Believe me, there will be many a dry eye at its funeral.

Department of Health and Human Services. The human services almost entirely mean welfare, for which the federal government is enumerated no powers in the constitution. I see the need for some of the public health functions, given that epidemics have a nasty way of crossing state lines, but … Lord Vader, that power isn’t actually enumerated to the federal government in the Constitution. There was simply no concept of public health at the time. I think this is probably the single best example I know to illustrate the reason why the constitution should be amendable — here is a case where the progress of civilization has genuinely invented a new civil art not anticipated by the Founders, for which there is a clear case in favor of enumerating power to the federal government.

And yet, they had epidemics in 1788 — more than we have now. And quarantine was a recognized police power.

Indeed — a police power which, like almost all other police powers, was to be retained by the states. In a day of unimaginably rapid transport, compared with 1788, this is a valid federal concern, and the Constitution ought to have been amended to permit it.

But no one saw the need, because no one took seriously the “few and enumerated powers” concept. If everyone agreed it was a good idea, why not just look the other way while the feds took it over? Of course, since everyone agreed it was a a good idea, it should have been simple to pass an amendment — but the politicians were just too lazy.

Bottom line: Keep conditionally, as the Department of Health, with the condition being that a serious effort is commenced to enumerate this power by properly amending the Constitution.

Department of Housing and Urban Development. Ptthhh. This one not only is nowhere enumerated in the Constitution, but it has historically been an enormous fail. [Snip … snip-snip].

His Majesty has a way of picking up faddish neologisms, and giving them a positively sinister gloss. I could almost feel millions of bureaucratic voices suddenly cry out in terror, and as suddenly choked into silence.

Department of Transportation. Rename this the Department of Post Offices and Post Roads, and you’ll bring it in line with the only Constitutional excuse for its existence. Everything else can go to Commerce.

Department of Energy. No federal mandate. None whatsoever. And, unlike Health, not at all a good idea. Abolish and move the NNSA to Defense where it belongs and the NRC to Commerce where it belongs. [Snip.]

Department of Education. No federal mandate whatsoever, and another enormous fail. Abolish. {Snip-snip… snip …]

Department of Veterans Affairs. Ranks with the Department of Labor as an enormously cynical bow to a (admittedly rather different and more sympathetic) powerful political constituency. Put it under Defense where it belongs.

Department of Homeland Security. This might be my favorite department, if it actually engendered the frisson of terror a department by that name ought to. Instead, it’s an Ewok menagerie, most closely (and quite incorrectly) associated in the public mind with the kabuki security of airports — which actually falls under the Department of Transport, which we have already resolved to replace.

Its components were almost all stolen from other departments where they more naturally belonged. Immigration; that should have a department all to itself. Secret Service; it was probably an improvement to take that away from Treasury, but it should now go to Justice, or else be administered directly under the White House. Coast Guard; really ought to have remained under Treasury. FEMA; perhaps the only component that actually fits the concept and that does not go better under Defense. I see no logic in lumping Immigration with FEMA, and I see a great danger in giving Immigration its own department; that would create a bureaucratic incentive for massive immigration. And the notion of a Department of Crises doesn’t quite fly.

A Department of Immigration and Other Disasters, perhaps?

Why, Vader. You have some sense of humor after all.

No, I’m not quite ready to jump on the Trump-Sanders immigration bandwagon. Immigration; clearly an enumerated Federal responsibility. As distasteful as I find it, we probably have to have a Department of Immigration and Naturalization. We shall put considerable thought into its structure and regulation, and give it great vigilance. We will give it bureaucratic incentives to actually bring immigration under control.

And FEMA: I’m not sure I see any federal mandate for it. I recall that some distant-past President actually refused Federal aid for a disaster with the observation that, as sympathetic as the cause was, it was unhealthy for the federal government to make a precedent of getting involved. I’m inclined to turn this one over to the American Red Cross. Or perhaps your church, Vader. If they’re going to boast (accurately) of being the first on the scene with relief in so many disasters, let them own the honor.

The thing that puzzles me about this is the willingness of a Sith like Palpatine to strip so much power from an office to which he aspires.

I’ve already privately admitted to you that I’m in it mainly for the entertainment value.

But even where that not so, there is much to be said for the aspiring tyrant who cuts down the number of departments in his organizational chart. It can actually enhance his real power.

Look at this bonsai, Vader. It is less than a foot high, yet it is over a century old. Do you know how it got that way? For over a century, its caretakers have carefully pruned away all the strongest, most vigorous growth points, leaving a multitude of weak growth points that compete with each other for nourishment. As soon as one gets ahead of the others, I prune it away.

If I wanted this to be a large tree, I would do the opposite — prune the weak growth points and leave a few vigorous growth points to flourish.

I see the analogy … but are you really suggesting that reducing the number of Federal departments is the road to tyranny?

Don’t be daft, Lord Vader. The bureacracy is already a deliciously monstrous tyranny. It is, however, a mindless and pointless tyranny. My goal is to make it my tyranny, driven by my will towards my conscious ends.

This means massive pruning of the weak growth points to divert the strength to the strong growth points. I admit this will result in a temporary reduction in tyranny; but I think I have the means to avoid an unfortunate flourishing of liberty.

And that means is Congress.

His Majesty began cackling and snipping with a vengeance. I withdrew before he had pruned his favorite bonsai to a stump. Sometimes I think I’m a bad influence on him, just by being there to listen.