Category: Update

There used to be comity in Washington, D.C., because there was a system in place that allowed the two vying parties to fleece the public while “justifying” the fleecing. Paul Jacob wrote about this over a decade ago:

[H]ere was the genius of the system: The slight cuts in growth rates allowed left-​leaning Democrats to hysterically decry the cruelty of the “cuts” that Reagan was “imposing” — courtesy of the accounting tricks allowed by the post-​Nixon Budget Control Act — despite the illusory nature of those cuts.

Republican politicians, meanwhile, could go home to boast of those “cuts.”

Meanwhile, deficits ballooned under Ronald Reagan, and Republican voters came to accept deficit financing (growth in debt) as a natural thing, almost good. With the ascension of George W. Bush to the presidency, and a post-​Clintonian reaction giving majorities in both houses to Republicans, this trend solidified.

Paul Jacob, “Dumbline Democracy,” Townhall (July 8, 2012).

The comity ended as increasing numbers of Americans came to disbelieve in the confidence game the two parties engaged in. This led to the selection by one of the parties of a candidate enough outside the con artists’ guild to upset the out-​of-​control order. Trump, that is.

So now that key bit of legislation, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, is finally under serious targeting:

In a move that could give President Donald Trump more freedom to enact his agenda, Republicans are attempting to repeal a law which ties the hands of presidents who don’t want to spend particular funding appropriated by Congress.

Known as impoundment, the practice of declining to spend funds provided by Congress dates back to President Thomas Jefferson.

Since 1974, however, it has been tempered by the Impoundment Control Act (ICA).

Nathan Worcester, “Republicans Seek to Unleash President’s Power to Not Spend,” The Epoch Times (February 16, 2025).

The constitutionality of impoundment has never reached the Supreme Court. The practice was started by Jefferson, who used it to stop Congress from unconstitutional spending — but because impoundment was not in the Constitution itself, it’s open to obvious challenge, and to the argument that it is an example of executive overreach.

The whole issue comes down to the fact that the Constitution provides inadequate means of the executive to stop Congress from unconstitutional acts, as well as the states to stop the federal government as a whole from the same. The constitutional crises associated with slavery expansion in the mid-​century are now endlessly discussed. But current dysfunctional partisan over-​spending is at least as serious a problem. 

Thankfully, we have an easier marker for a constitutional crisis now:

See also “The Fourteenth Amendment Escape Clause,” July 8, 2011.

Government by executive order is as far from democratic as you can get — and quite unconstitutional. So at first blush, this does not look like a good sign:

“The orders, which Trump critics say greatly exceed his constitutional authority,” explains NBC News, “range from tariffs on Mexico, China and Canada, to pauses on foreign aid and crackdowns on illegal immigration to bans on transgender people serving in the military and the use of federal funds for gender-​affirming medical care for minors.”

But there is another way to look at it, as Paul Jacob argued on Wednesday: “If the net effect of Trump’s barrage of executive orders and DOGE edicts is to reduce government burdens, is it really the kind of tyranny we must freak out about?”

The general effect of governance since the world wars and the Great Depression has been an increase in federal burdens on individual citizens, businesses, communities, and the states themselves. Lost in the workings of an increasingly imperialistic nation-​state, the original idea of a federal republic got lost. The growth of “Deep State” institutions — a permanent administrative state combined with corporate contractors (“the military-​industrial complex” of Ike’s warning) engaging in secrecy and lies — has changed the complexion of the existing constitution, no more astounding than in the way it uses taxpayer money to influence taxpayer opinion for political effect.

This excresence became painfully obvious this last week when the Department of Government Efficiency uncovered the quasi-​secret subsidies of the USAID programs to mainstream American news-​and-​opinion media, Politico being just the tip of the iceberg.

Trump’s (and Elon’s) activities, to the extent that they diminish government power or reduce the amount of wealth redistributed from some groups of people to others, is better defined as the opposite of tyrannical. 

But of course, to the extent the executive orders increase state power, and without congressional sanction, then that is very much going in the wrong direction.

Still, the upshot must be this: we do not live in a constitutionally ordered free society; precipitous action that returns us to such an order are not so much tyrannical as liberating.

To judge the general tenor of these orders, properly, consulting a good compendium, such as NBC’s, has to be a good start. 

But the idea that Trump and Elon are not doing what they are elected to do, but that they are, as Senator Elizabeth Warren puts it, “seizing power from the American people,” does not seem a good interpretation of recent political trends. 

And the idea that the American people have been in charge but are not now is preposterous.

Senator Chuck Schumer’s charge is even more bizarre. “Before our very eyes, an unelected, shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.” DOGE may be hostile, but it is out in the open — not shadowy at all — and not so much taking over federal government as shutting down parts of it. 

“What’s funny about this claim,” counters Bridget Phetasy, “is that an unelected shadow government just ran this country for four years while they hid the fact that the elected president was barely functioning … and shamed Americans for pointing it out.”

President Donald Trump’s Second Inaugural Address will surely be regarded as a historically consequential speech. One consequence comes from the Speaker of the House: “It is my distinct honor and great privilege to invite President Donald Trump to address a Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, to share his America First vision for our future.”

Does this signal an earnest willingness for Congress to work with the new president, or is it merely a formal nicety, the usual blather?

The Epoch Times offered an extended explanation:

The event, though not classified as a State of the Union, follows a tradition since President Ronald Reagan where newly inaugurated presidents deliver speeches that are marked by comparable formality and ceremony. Such speeches are an opportunity for presidents to outline their vision for the nation at the start of their term, and to rally bipartisan support for their agenda.

Reagan’s 1981 address set the tone for this modern custom, focusing on economic recovery and national renewal during a time of economic stagnation and inflation. The priorities Reagan outlined in his speech included the promise of tax cuts, deregulation, as well as measures to curb inflation while encouraging job growth.

Paul Jacob commented on the speech on Tuesday of last week.

Life in prison — two life sentences! Plus 40 years. That’s a long time incarcerated … for anyone. Especially for one so young as Ross Ulbricht, who, after all, did not kill anybody, or defraud anybody, or steal from anybody.

The operatives of the federal government, on the other hand, wanted to send a message.

Last year, Donald Trump sent a message to members of the Libertarian Party: support me and I’ll free Ross Ulbricht.

Paul Jacob, in these pages, has written about both Mr. Ulbricht and Mr. Trump. Now Mr. Trump is hours away from returning to office, the only public office he’s ever had. Will he exercise his pardon power in favor of Ulbricht?

A week ago, Bitcoin Magazine wondered about the possibility of a pardon. “Although most Bitcoiners admit that Ulbricht was probably aware of his legal violations while profiting from Silk Road transactions, many believe that his asset forfeiture and 11-​year-​and-​counting prison stay have become a sufficient penalty.”

The next day, Nick Gillespie of Reason brought up the possibility: “Reminder: Donald Trump Promised To Free Ross Ulbricht on ‘Day One.’”

Protos figures the odds: “Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market, hosts bets on a list of people Trump could pardon in his first 100 days in office. Unfortunately, no major prediction market lists binary options odds on a ‘day one’ pardon or commutation.”

An article today, in the Prescott eNews, quotes actor Keanu Reaves in Ulbricht’s favor: “The Silk Road and trial of Ross Ulbricht involve many important and complex issues that impact the life of Mr. Ulbricht and us all.” It may be a politically vague statement, but it is nevertheless true.

For his part, Ross Ulbricht insists upon his good intentions, not ill or evil ones: “I was trying to help us move forward.” 

Donald Trump is scheduled to be sworn into office as the 47th President of the United States on Monday the 20th of January. We will see what Mr. Trump truly seeks to move forward, soon after.

“Though many factors contributed to the devastation (such as fire hydrants without water, too few controlled burns, and insurance price controls),” explains Jack Nicastro at Reason, “it was also exacerbated by land-​use policies that pushed homes and residents away from the city center and closer to the wildland-​urban interface (WUI). The U.S. Fire Administration defines the WUI as ‘the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development … where structures … intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.’”

President Trump has talked about California’s environmentalist hegemony, preventing the routing of huge amounts of water in the north of the state to the desertified south. Trump, and many people online, blame protection of a specific small fish, the delta smelt. Some or all of Trump’s claims have been “fact-​checked” by news media outlets, such as CNN.

Meanwhile, to those keeping their eyes peeled to major media coverage, global warming started out as the chief cause of the fires. This seems shaky at best, however, and has been repeatedly been debunked, such as by the Heartland Institute. California has a long, long history of forest fires, and the Santa Anas blow fires into conflagrations, and have been doing so for ages. 

Since wildfires are a continual problem for California, governments can hardly be exonerated on account of being “surprised.” And if governments exist to provide the most basic of services — as many argue — surely fire protection would be high on the priority list.

But it wasn’t on Los Angeles’s mayor’s list, apparently. She scuttled off to Ghana to celebrate the continent’s first woman president. But her glorying in a feminist moment was marred by pestering questions about fire protection, and why so much money had been [allegedly] cut from fire-​fighting budgets.

And then there has been the talk of arson. January is not the usual time of year for out-​of-​control fires, so one naturally wonders what ignited the holocaust. And there has been more than one arrest for arson.

Unlike in the fires that raged farther north, in 2020 (after the George Floyd riots), there does not seem to be a blanket denial in the media of arson, and even celebrities are spreading rumors about widespread firebug activity.