I addressed this once before in a column:
Rural Voters and Small Government
On CNN, they allowed a Trump supporter to write an editorial. He is a lawyer, and he actually had some work to do to strip regulation.
On the first day of the Trump administration, I joined 24 other lawyers in the White House, where we were charged with helping fulfill President Donald Trump's promises to the American people.The President wanted to unleash American ingenuity and stimulate economic growth by rolling back burdensome and, in some cases, crippling regulations that were allowed to run amok during the Obama administration.
Read more here:
He mentions a couple trying to build in Idaho. "Mike and Chantell Sackett, in 2005, purchased two-thirds of an acre on which they planned to build a house. Shortly after they began clearing the land, the EPA issued a compliance order to stop work claiming the parcel was, in fact, a wetland and could not be developed. "
It seems a rididculous situation. However, most land is zoned locally, and the zoning boards are supposed to know how to develop land. it may be that they are corrupt, and they may be paid off by big developers to approve their areas first. That is all local politics. Almost never do you need to go to the federal level.
It seems a rididculous situation. However, most land is zoned locally, and the zoning boards are supposed to know how to develop land. it may be that they are corrupt, and they may be paid off by big developers to approve their areas first. That is all local politics. Almost never do you need to go to the federal level.
The federal government is quite different now from the 1770s. It collects taxes, it has complicated structure. The first presidents had no standing army, no currency, a few ships for the navy.
The modern state is complicated. The functions of the government are well explained in the Michael Lewis book:
There are millions of government employees. There is a weather bureau, law enforcement that goes across states, DEA, CDC, nuclear waste, etc. You can get an idea of the book here.
The employees, post office and all, report to cabinet secretaries. Congress has passed laws funding all these departments and defining their tasks. But the cabinet is in fact not even in the constitution. The Founding Fathers did not want a strong cabinet. On the other hand, the constitution does not ban one either. The trouble is that for its continuity, the cabinet department has to have a long term mission. The President in fact does have the power to define these missions or even shut down functions. it makes a big difference who is president. If the president does not know what the weather service does, he can shut it down. "After all, all the TV stations have weather. What do we need the Weather Service for?" Well, find out where the TV stations get their weather data.
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