[lex24]

Actually, he was impeached.  And he certainly has not been immune from investigations.  I don’t believe any President has been as investigated as Trump. 

IMO the problem isn’t so much the power of the Executive, it is the fecklessness of Congress. Driven by uber partisanship. 2016 should have been a wake up call. It wasn’t.  Congress, in its inability to compromise, has as a result ceded much of its power to the Executive.  Leading, among other things, to the rise of Executive Orders.  Consider this Reagan’s ‘ 86 tax reform bill was sponsored in the House by Dan Rostenkowsi.  It passed with bipartisan support. Both Obama (ACA) and Trumps (tax reform) biggest legislative victories passed purely on party lines. Which of course means when you have a change of party in the White House they simply try to undo the legislation. Trump and the Republicans have tried it with the ACA and if Biden wins he and the Democrats will try the same thing with tax reform.

Of all the things Trump has done his Presidency, passing a tax cut is about the most "normal" thing he's done (at least as a Republican).  I guarantee you that a President Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or John Kasich would have done something quite similar.

And, given that the government's varying fiscal situation, taxes go up and taxes go down.  I'll remind you that after the Reagan tax cut, it was George HW Bush (and later Bill Clinton) who raised taxes when it became clear that that tax cuts did not, in fact, pay for themselves and deficits continued to rise.  When Clinton's tax increases produced surpluses, it was a surprise to exactly no one that his successor would take advantage of the favorable fiscal situation to cut them again.

BC

A mea culpa here.  The above post probably does not conform to the Terry Rule, since there is no link to COVID-19, and it seems to have launched a tangent on the causes of budget surpluses in the late 90's, which was not my intention.  Sorry all.

BC

BC-

 My comment regarding the Reagan tax cuts vis-à-vis the Obama and Trump legislative “victories“ had nothing to do with the the policies themselves as to whether they were “right”  or “wrong” or “good” or “bad”. . It had everything to do with the difference between a time basis (1986) when it was possible to pass major legislation he n a bi-partisan basis and what is happening now – which is strict party line votes. That’s all I was trying to convey in my comment.

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The bona fides of the impeachment were undercut by the fact that (a) the grounds were absurdly slight, and (b) a solid plurality of Democrats would have voted to impeach Trump on the day of his inauguration, i.e., good faith is extremely doubtful.

Wow, I couldn't disagree with this statement more, particularly with (a).  The good faith argument is laughable when they won't even allow direct witnesses with relevance to the charge.  It's the problem with Goose's comment that the Senate is the court.  Courts don't usually have extreme conflicts-of-interest where their votes can be influenced by whether they retain their position.  It should be about the facts and the analysis, not political considerations.

Impeachment is a purely political instrument.

[lex24]

Actually, he was impeached.  And he certainly has not been immune from investigations.  I don’t believe any President has been as investigated as Trump. 

IMO the problem isn’t so much the power of the Executive, it is the fecklessness of Congress. Driven by uber partisanship. 2016 should have been a wake up call. It wasn’t.  Congress, in its inability to compromise, has as a result ceded much of its power to the Executive.  Leading, among other things, to the rise of Executive Orders.  Consider this Reagan’s ‘ 86 tax reform bill was sponsored in the House by Dan Rostenkowsi.  It passed with bipartisan support. Both Obama (ACA) and Trumps (tax reform) biggest legislative victories passed purely on party lines. Which of course means when you have a change of party in the White House they simply try to undo the legislation. Trump and the Republicans have tried it with the ACA and if Biden wins he and the Democrats will try the same thing with tax reform.

Of all the things Trump has done his Presidency, passing a tax cut is about the most "normal" thing he's done (at least as a Republican).  I guarantee you that a President Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or John Kasich would have done something quite similar.

And, given that the government's varying fiscal situation, taxes go up and taxes go down.  I'll remind you that after the Reagan tax cut, it was George HW Bush (and later Bill Clinton) who raised taxes when it became clear that that tax cuts did not, in fact, pay for themselves and deficits continued to rise.  When Clinton's tax increases produced surpluses, it was a surprise to exactly no one that his successor would take advantage of the favorable fiscal situation to cut them again.

BC

A mea culpa here.  The above post probably does not conform to the Terry Rule, since there is no link to COVID-19, and it seems to have launched a tangent on the causes of budget surpluses in the late 90's, which was not my intention.  Sorry all.

BC

BC-

 My comment regarding the Reagan tax cuts vis-à-vis the Obama and Trump legislative “victories“ had nothing to do with the the policies themselves as to whether they were “right”  or “wrong” or “good” or “bad”. . It had everything to do with the difference between a time basis (1986) when it was possible to pass major legislation he n a bi-partisan basis and what is happening now – which is strict party line votes. That’s all I was trying to convey in my comment.

---

The bona fides of the impeachment were undercut by the fact that (a) the grounds were absurdly slight, and (b) a solid plurality of Democrats would have voted to impeach Trump on the day of his inauguration, i.e., good faith is extremely doubtful.

Wow, I couldn't disagree with this statement more, particularly with (a).  The good faith argument is laughable when they won't even allow direct witnesses with relevance to the charge.  It's the problem with Goose's comment that the Senate is the court.  Courts don't usually have extreme conflicts-of-interest where their votes can be influenced by whether they retain their position.  It should be about the facts and the analysis, not political considerations.

Impeachment is a purely political instrument.