The Alien Enemies Act. Or, the Aliens Are Enemies Act.

Posted on May 7, 2025 by jsh54

As the result of historical experience during the French and Indian Wars, Anglo-Americans regarded France as the enemy and Britain as their benevolent parent-country. Then the British and their American colonists fell out. War followed. During the Revolutionary War, the self-proclaimed United States signed an alliance with the French monarchy. France loaned money to the Americans and declared war on Britain. France also sent military forces to America. The Franco-American alliance remained in effect after the war. Then the French Revolution broke out, France overthrew the monarchy and declared itself a Republic, and declared war (1792) on everyone except the Man in the Moon and the Americans.

Americans divided sharply on how to deal with France. Many people (often Federalists) hated the French version of revolution. Many other people (mostly Democratic-Republicans) sympathized, at the least, with the aims of the French revolutionaries. The issue became a partisan matter. Congress seized the opportunity to repudiate repayment of the French war loans because they were onerous (1793). Congress then ratified the “Jay Treaty” which settled disputes between the United States and Britain (1794). France responded by allowing French “privateers” to seize a lot of American merchant ships in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Trying to fend off a war, the Americans sent a delegation to negotiate with France (1797-1798). This ended badly and a “Quasi-War” at sea broke out (1798-1801).[1]

President John Adams and the Federalist majorities in Congress passed a package of four “Alien and Sedition Laws” (1798). Formally, Adams feared that the French would try to spread their revolutionary ideology to the United States. Informally, the Federalists had come to see the Democratic-Republicans as inclined toward the same policies as the French. So, stomp on them.

The “Alien Friends Act” allowed the President to deport anyone considered to be “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” The law sun-setted after two years, and the government didn’t make much of an effort to enforce it anyway.

The “Naturalization Act” extended the residence requirement before obtaining citizenship from 5 years to 14 years. Lots of/most immigrants voted Democratic-Republicans once they got the right to vote. The law was repealed in 1802.

The “Sedition Act” criminalized saying mean things about Federalists in government. A whole bunch of Democratic-Republican writers for the media of the day were prosecuted. (My personal favorite is Jame Callender.) The law expired in 1801.

The “Alien Enemies Act” granted the President the authority to arrest, imprison, or deport any non-citizen during a time when the United States was at war with, either formally or informally, a foreign country from which that non-citizen originated.[2] The informal part gave the president the right to act in something like the undeclared “Quasi-War” or if an attack occurred when Congress could not be consulted immediately. The Act has never been repealed. The Act has been used in the War of 1812, the First World War, and the Second World War.

So, can an old law be re-interpreted for new purposes? If so, who can re-interpret it?

[1] XYZ Affair – Wikipedia (sort of a “Town Mouse and Country Mouse” affair) and Quasi-War – Wikipedia

[2] OK, that’s a long and clotted sentence. The point is, the United States is not now at war with or suffering a “predatory incursion” ordered by a foreign country. People free-lancing a “predatory incursion” isn’t covered by the language of the law. Ipso fatso, President Trump doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 18.

Posted on May 6, 2025 by jsh54

Americans have come to depend on cheap Chinese products. Conversely, China has come to depend on massive exports of its goods to the United States. Hence, President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 145 percent tariff on imports from China will shock both the American and Chinese systems.[1]

What does the United States get from China? At least 75 percent of electric fans, dolls, video game consoles, tricycles, food processors, and smart phones.[2] Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard all source many of their products from Asia (China, Taiwan). The tariffs could push the price of a basic iPhone 16 from $799 to $1,140.[3] China also produces and exports renewable energy equipment, lithium batteries, and electric vehicles.

Much of the American reaction to the trade war with China has been “Eeeek!” One newspaper warned of “an economic crisis that could leave America poorer for generations.” A West Coast port executive said that “essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers have ceased.” As a result, one business economist[4] warned of “empty shelves in U.S. stores in a few weeks,” and “Covid-like shortages for consumers.” These stoppages will cascade into job losses for longshoremen, truckers and railroads, and retail sales.[5] There could be a grievous toy shortage at Christmas because 80 percent of America’s toys are made in China.[6]

What does China get from the United States? Soybeans. Some kinds of computer chips. And many jobs. All the stuff no longer going to America either has to be sold somewhere else, or stock-piled in warehouses, or not made at all. Neither of the last two is sustainable, politically or economically, for long. So China has to find a new target for its exports.

Which country will blink first? Is there a reasonable compromise that can be negotiated?

Trump has wobbled on China to a degree. He exempted some consumer electronics (smart phones, laptops) from most of the China tariffs. He also indicated that he was ready to negotiate with China and that Xi Jinping had called him. At the same time, he seems determined to “decouple” the economies of the two countries.[7] At the very least, he said, “China will probably eat those tariffs. Everything is going to be fine.”

For their part, the Chinese seem not to have anticipated the “speed and ferocity” of the American trade counter-attack on China’s economic strategy.[8] China’s public response has been to dig in. “Bowing to a bully is like drinking poison to quench thirst.”[9] Threats of retaliation abound. When Trump said that Xi Jinping had called about tariffs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry basically called Trump a liar. Hard to know which of those two to believe.

[1] “Decoupling: The U.S.-China trade divorce, The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 34.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Inflation: How tariffs could push up prices,” The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 17.

[4] As in an economist employed by a business, in this case an asset management firm.

[5] “Trump shrugs off warnings over trade war costs,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 4.

[6] Feels heartless denying kids their hearts’ desire at Christmas. Still, Boxing Day can be a time for repentance.

[7] The historian Stephen Kotkin has observed that Trump often talks out of both sides of his mouth, but if you look at what he actually does, you can tell what he really means. His remarks bore on Iran’s nuclear program. He thinks Trump means to stop it, whatever that may require. There’s no reason not to apply the same view to China trade.

[8] “Decoupling: The U.S.-China trade divorce, The Week, 25 April 2025, p. 34.

[9] Given China’s behavior toward its neighbors in Taiwan and the Philippines, this is comic.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 14.

Posted on April 9, 2025 by jsh54

History lessons. The United States was a high tariff nation for a long time.[1] By 1929, the average tariff on imported goods was 36 percent. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 raised the tariff by 6 percent.[2] In comparison, the average American tariff under recent administrations has been 2 percent. Trump’s tariffs elevate that to 23 percent. So, for the moment, the Trump tariffs have a greater impact than did the Smoot-Hawley tariff. (Give it a few years and maybe we’ll be living with still-higher Vance tariffs.)

In 1971, President Richard Nixon wanted foreign countries to revalue the dollar. To nudge them toward speedy agreement, he imposed a 10 percent surcharge on imports. He got speedy agreement and the surcharge went away.

Today. How serious a blow to the American economy are the Trump tariffs? Never mind the stock market and the headlines in the New York Times.[3] The American tariffs (at least the current high rates) aren’t likely to topple a row of dominos. Most countries aren’t eager to launch a trade war with anyone just because the United States has launched one with everyone. Most countries remain committed to “globalization” and comparatively free trade.

What is true of Europeans and non-Chinese Asians is also true of many Americans. One recent poll reported that 54 percent of respondents opposed the tariffs, while 42 percent supported them. Pressure from constituents may bring Republican members of Congress off the sidelines, at least on this issue.

Then what about retaliatory tariffs on American goods? This sounds a little odd when Americans are being told that tariffs on foreign imports is really a tax on ordinary Americans. Same goes for tariffs on American goods in foreign countries. Do democracies abroad suddenly want to impose possibly long-term “tax” increases on their own constituents?

So, it is not clear if American tariffs and foreign retaliation are a done deal for the long haul. Many of the target countries want to cut a deal with the United States. China is an exception.[4] It’s fair to say that people are not entirely sure what President Donald Trump wants. Does he want tariff equality with most of America’s trading partners, while battering the daylights out of China? Does he want a “fortress America,” as many people believe or hope or fear? If he does want a “fortress America,” would that system survive the end of his term?

In 1932, the British created a system called “Imperial Preference”: low to no tariffs around the members, combined with a high external tariff directed against the Americans. Could Trump use tariff negotiations to create something similar? Tariff equality within the bloc and high tariffs by directed against China.

[1] Greg Ip, “An Unpopular and Survivable Trade War,” WSJ, 8 April 2025.

[2] However, it denominated tariffs in dollar terms, not in percent of price terms. As prices fell all around the world in the early Thirties, the absolute cost of the imports increased by much more than 6 percent. They rose as high as an additional 19 percent above the 36 percent level.

[3] Wait. Wall Street and the NYT are on the same side? The problems of the Democrats in a nutshell. “We are the people our parents warned us about.”

[4] It may turn out that Canada is also an exception. Canadians are the nicest people in the world. Until they’re not. In Normandy in Summer 1944, an attacking Waffen SS unit over-ran a Canadian Army field hospital. They killed everyone. Then the Canadians counter-attacked and recaptured the hospital. The Canadians never “captured” any more Waffen SS troops.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 10.

Posted on March 21, 2025 by jsh54

Elon Musk kept swinging his scythe through the federal workforce, firing 7,000 people at the IRS and an additional 1,400 from Veterans Affairs, while warning the Environmental Protection Agency to expect a 65 percent reduction in force from its current 17,000 employees.[1]

Then, at the end of February 2025, Elon Musk had the Office of Personnel Management e-mail, oh, several million federal civilian employees. The message instructed them to submit a five bullet-point list of the major stuff that they had done the previous week. Failure to comply would be taken as a resignation.

Federal employees, their union representatives, and the Democratic Party responded with their competing imitations of Albert Goldman.[2] About a dozen Secretaries of Departments rallied to the defense of their employees. The latter seemed to some observers like the leaders being captured by their followers. President Donald Trump may have seen it in that light because he gave Musk pride of place at a televised Cabinet meeting.

The themes in the criticism were as before: Musk is an “unelected” person culling the ranks of the unelected employees wielding the power of the federal government; and lots of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike–depend upon the federal government for income or medical care or education. The appeal to elected politicians to keep things as they are against the actions of the unelected man-child genius seeking to avert national bankruptcy captures the spirit of the enterprise. It is disruption of the Old Order and NOT kicking the can down the road that arouses resistance. In addition, it is argued that cutting employees from Veterans Affairs will harm veterans. In reality, for at least twenty years people who deal with Veterans Affairs have been complaining that it is the most messed-up organization that they have ever seen. A string of good leaders (e.g. Eric Shinseki) have failed in their efforts to fix it. Finally, it is asserted that the cuts to the IRS will just hinder efforts to get the rich to pay their “fair share.” This is an ever-green political issue. Democrats like having it as an issue with which to bash the Republicans, but they will not actually raise taxes on the rich when they could.[3]

Then, to be asked to briefly state what work one did last week doesn’t seem unusual or difficult. Corporations—both in America and around the world—carry out reductions in force whenever the balance sheet tips too much into the red. Often, they’re not too strategic about where the axe falls. It isn’t regarded as the end of the world.

On the other hand, government isn’t a business. Ideally, the government does things for society that are essential or highly desirable, but for which there is no reasonable private sector provider. The Departments of Defense, State, Justice, the Treasury, and the CIA and NSA for example. Then there is the government’s role in funding and coordinating scientific and medical research, and managing a system of air traffic control. Moreover, the “bureaucracy” isn’t staffed only with drones. It recruits many specialist experts. Sweeping purges will cause a bunch of things to go wrong soon. And once the experts get the heave, it will be hard to lure them back.

[1] “DOGE slashes workforce with Trump’s backing,” The Week, 7 March 2025, p. 5.

[2] The character played by the great Nathan Lane in “The Birdcage” (dir. Mike Nichols, 1996).

[3] The Biden administration’s “American Rescue Plan” passed the Senate 50-49; its “Inflation Reduction Act” passed the Senate 51-50. Both used “Reconciliation” to by-pass the filibuster. Higher taxes easily could have been included if they actually wanted to make the rich pay “their fair share.” Same for repealing the “debt ceiling.”

“I hate rude behavior in a man.”–Woodrow F. Call, “Lonesome Dove.”

Posted on March 5, 2025 by jsh54

What is a “manly man”? My grandfather pretty much abandoned his wife and two sons during the Twenties. My Dad grew up in the Depression. He picked fruit in California; logged in Montana; worked on a government survey ship in the Gulf of Alaska; was the assistant manager of a movie theater in Portland, Oregon; soldiered on Guadalcanal and Bougainville; was a ski-bum in Sun Valley and a cab driver in Seattle and Anchorage; and—eventually—owned a small business that put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, along with many other things. He smoked two packs of Camels a day. He read a lot of high-end trash.[1] He knew many “colorful” expressions, but he did not use them indoors or in front of women and children. He never raised his voice to–let alone hit–my Mom or me and my siblings. (He did punch out a tug-boat captain who disrespected my Mom.) He taught me to sail, to ski, to drive a car (with a manual gear-shift), and to shoot both long guns and pistols (which we had around the house in an unlocked rack) and gun safety (“always check in the breech”). He believed in individual achievement and personal responsibility. He always voted straight-ticket Republican, except for the time he voted for McGovern because he was so angry about the waste and lies of the Vietnam War. He intensely disliked rich swells, especially rich swells who went into politics and took up the cause of the “common man.” (This meant FDR and all the Kennedys.) He and my Mom believed that “a woman’s place was in the home” and that “a man had to provide for his family.” He and my Mom were casual racists, just like most other White people of the time outside the South. He was the finest man I’ve ever known.

He offered an example of “traditional masculinity,” rather than “toxic masculinity.” That distinction began when the term “toxic masculinity” was taken up by men’s movements in the 1980s and 1990s. Gender differences are essentially hard-wired, rather than socially constructed.[2] “Toxic” masculinity could appear where men had lost contact with real or “deep” masculinity. Masculinity became “toxic” when men lost comradery with other men and when they repressed emotions. From there, the term crept into academic studies and, from there, into the media in the 2010s. Along the way, however, it became generalized to describe ALL masculinity. In part, this seems to have occurred among people—feminists, gay-rights activists–struggling courageously for their own liberation. In part, this sprang from “gray wolf” behavior among academics.[3] In part, this seems to have resulted from the intellectual laziness of people in the media.[4] There followed a moral panic over behavior attributed to many men.[5]

Social movements swing like a pendulum, taking ever more extreme positions. So it was with “toxic masculinity.” Recent studies find that many male Trump voters support abortion rights, gender equality, and openness about emotions, but don’t believe that women’s progress has come at the expense of men. They’re just sick of being stigmatized.[6]

Believing a man should provide for his family is preferable to abandoning that family.

[1] Kenneth Roberts, C.S. Forester, and John D. MacDonald.

[2] On “Social Construction” see Social construction of gender – Wikipedia Lots of jargon.

[3] Pack hunter – Wikipedia

[4] See: Toxic masculinity – Wikipedia, “Terminology.”

[5] Moral panic – Wikipedia

[6] Claire Cain Miller, “Many Trump-Voting Men Feel Under Fire, Yet Defy Stereotypes,” NYT, 5 March 2025.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 9.

Posted on February 27, 2025 by jsh54

New York City Mayor Eric Adams had been critical of President Joe Biden’s policy on illegal immigration. He became so after the administration’s “Remain in Texas” policy had collapsed, flooding Democratic cities in the North with illegal immigrants. Adams and newly-elected President Donald Trump drew together. So far, so good. Bipartisanship is still possible!

However, a problem existed. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York had accused Adams of various serious crimes. It seemed possible, if not certain, that Adams would be out as mayor.

In mid-February 2025, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove declared that the mayor’s parochial legal difficulties were harming his ability to assist the President’s national immigration policy.[1] Bove ordered Danielle Sassoon, the acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to drop the charges against Adams “without prejudice.” Sassoon requested a meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss her concerns that this was a corrupt bargain; Bondi declined to meet with Sassoon, who then resigned. Bove then ordered Sassoon’s deputy to dismiss the charges. He got a less politely phrased response than Sassoon had provided, and the deputy resigned. So did a bunch of other lawyers who wouldn’t be caught dead doing what Bove wanted. Finally, the charges did get dismissed. Then four deputy mayors of New York City resigned.[2]

At the moment, Adams remains Mayor. Perhaps not for long. Voters will have a chance to turf him out at the next election. They’re likely to do so. Adams is besmirched by the deal, so the chances of him losing re-elections are increased. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has contemplated removing him from office even before an election. The Department of Justice retains great leverage over Adams. The charges were dismissed “without prejudice.” This means that they can be reinstated whenever the Trump administration finds Adams insufficiently co-operative with something (anything) in the future. Or even when he is no more use to them.

What does the Trump administration get out of this deal? It gets unrestricted access to the denizens of New York City’s vast jail system. Any illegal immigrant who is arrested for something is liable to find themselves on a federal government airplane bound for a banana republic.[3] In effect, the NYPD becomes an extension of the effort to expel illegal immigrants.

Trump, Bove, and Adams have come in for much abuse in the media for their apparent deal. So they should. If the sweeping pardons for the 6 January 2021 rioters[4] are added to this deal, then the administration can’t escape being called for its own “weaponization” of the law.

Nor is Adams out of the woods even over the short-term. Bove may have requested that the charges be dropped, but the presiding judge has to agree to it. It isn’t certain that he will agree. On the one hand, the whole thing stinks to high Heaven. On the other hand, prosecutors cut deals with criminals all the time. They do so when the alleged criminal agrees to cooperate with the government in pursuit of some larger goal. The government can argue that there’s no difference between Adams and a drug-dealer. OK, not a good re-election campaign slogan.

[1] “The U.S. at a Glance,” The Week, 21 February 2025, p. 7.

[2] “Justice Department: Condoning corruption under Trump?” The Week, 28 February 2025, p. 6.

[3] I can just hear people saying “You mean ANOTHER banana republic!”

[4] “Cop-beaters” in the frank words of the Wall Street Journal.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration.

Posted on February 25, 2025 by jsh54

Is the bureaucracy of the Executive Branch of the government of the United States lean, agile, innovative, and filled with able idealists? Or is it bloated, hide-bound, unwieldy, and ill-suited to the needs of the new century? It’s a fair question to ask.

President Donald Trump and Court Wizard Elon Musk appear to believe that it is the latter, rather than the former. For Trump, there seems to be the added flaw in the bureaucracy’s hostility to him during his first term. He may well want “revenge” both for their past hostility and to prevent anticipated resistance in his second term. For his part, Musk portrayed himself as battling an “unelected bureaucracy” in order to “restore the will of the people.”

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has taken on the task of reducing the federal workforce.[1] In mid-February 2025, DOGE began firing people in big chunks and very rapidly. In addition to the thousands of US AID workers on the chopping block, the Department of Agriculture took a heavy hit: 4,000 at the Department and a further 3,400 at its subordinate National Forest Service. Health and Human Services lost 5,200; the Energy Department lost 2,000; and the Department of Veterans Affairs lost 1,000.[2] Within these departments, some areas were hit particularly hard: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Nuclear Security Administration. More lay-offs took place at the Federal Aviation Agency and the National Park Service.[3] All this is alarming to terrifying.

At the same time, and with murky intent, DOGE went after the vast troves of data on ordinary Americans held by the federal government in the data centers of the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Treasury, and other agencies.[4]

In his first term, Trump caught a lot of criticism for treating China as a real danger by plastering it with tariffs, trying to build a wall at the southern border to resist massive illegal immigration, and denigrating our NATO allies. Then Joe Biden kept the tariffs, Russia’s attack on Ukraine revealed that the European allies have been pacifists for decades, and the failure to resist illegal immigration helped cost the Democrats the 2024 election. Now, some Democrats are admitting that a problem exists, even while they drag on Trump’s coat-tails. One journalist at the Washington Post accepted that problems did exist with the federal bureaucracy, but objected to indiscriminate mass firing. On the other hand, others stuck to their last, claiming that the firings were part of “a coup.” Competent civil servants would be driven out to make space for incompetent Trump loyalists. That argument is hard to refute when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kash Patel, and Peter Hegseth can be offered as evidence.

Two questions arise. One, is Trump just trying to scare the bureaucracy into compliance? Two, how can a log-jammed legislature reform and reduce a behemoth?

[1] “Trump makes mass layoffs across government,” The Week, 28 February 2025, p. 4.

[2] Currently, the federal government employs about 2.1 million civilians and about 600,000 military personnel.

[3] For context, the Department of Agriculture which includes the National Forest Service, employed 93,000 people at the end of the Biden administration, so the cuts amount to about 7.5 percent of the workforce; Health and Human Services employed about 83,000 people, so the cuts amount to about 6 percent of the workforce; The Department of Energy employed 14,000 civilians and 93,000 contractors, so the cuts amounted to 14 percent of the civilian workforce; and the Department of Veteran Affairs employed over 400,000 people, so the cuts are microscopic.

[4] Why do they need such information? They aren’t saying. Why not? They’re up to something.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 7.

Posted on February 15, 2025 by jsh54

Elon Musk posed a question during a meeting with the press in the Oval Office: “If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?”[1] It’s a fair question. In the guise of the “administrative state,” has concerned political scientists for some time.[2] A revolt against the “Eurocrats” of the European Union is a large part of what drove “Brexit.”[3] In short, there’s serious intellectual positions behind some of President Donald Trump’s policies, along with all the other motivations.

Trump has issued a snowstorm of Executive Orders (EOs).[4] Democrats in Congress could think of nothing to do, so they blustered. Progressive journalists fumed that “Musk is in charge of the U.S. government.” Until Trump casts him aside as he did others before.

Not so with many groups and people outside of Congress. “The old plan sufficeth them”: they sued. As a former White House lawyer said, agencies and laws created by Congress can only be closed by Congress. What Trump is doing is “shattering the fundamental checks and balances of our constitutional order.”[5] Attorneys General in Democratic states and unions representing federal employees went to law. Judges—Democrats and Republicans—issued temporary stays on a bunch of the administration’s policies.

The administration did not always comply with these court orders. Vice President JD Vance argued that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” What constitutes “the executive’s legitimate power”? Lawyers and the courts will sort out that claim.[6] Elon Musk said that the judge who had barred his men from Department of the Treasury records should be impeached.[7] President Trump himself said that his administration was searching out corruption and that “maybe we have to look at the judges.”[8]

Nothing dismayed, the administration ripped away $900 million from one agency within the Department of Education. The group “tracks student progress and educational best practices.” Declining student test scores indicate that the taxpayers aren’t getting much for their money.

What happens when Trump and Musk start cutting at the Department of Health and Human Services, or at Social Security, or at the Department of Defense? Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, and Defense are three of the four leading shares of government spending. As Willy Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks: “It’s where the money is.”

[1] “Trump, allies rage at courts amid judicial pushback,” The Week, 21 February 2025, p. 4.

[2] See: Administrative state – Wikipedia

[3] Although it is possible that an English hatred of the Scots after the campaign for Scottish independence also contributed to the surge of nationalism. In news broadcasts, Cross of St. George flags were all over the place.

[4] See: Diary of the Second Addams Administration 2. | waroftheworldblog

[5] Charles Raul in the Washington Post, quoted in “Trump, allies rage at courts amid judicial pushback,” The Week, 21 February 2025, p. 4.

[6] Top of the line in utility sports,Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts! #thesimpsons – YouTube “Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts.”

[7] On the status of Federal judges, see: United States federal judge – Wikipedia Impeachment is probably the only way to remove a federal judge before s/he dies. It would take a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove a judge. In the current state of the Senate, this will not happen. So Musk is annoying a judge in the Southern District of New York, which deals with all sorts of complicated cases touching on financial crimes, among other things. Smart.

[8] “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze into you”—Friedrich Nietzsche. If you see my point. Guy wrote the best bumper-stickers.

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 6.

Posted on February 12, 2025 by jsh54

President Donald Trump tasked “Special Government Employee” Elon Musk with downsizing government.[1] Musk, it is often pointed out, is an “unelected billionaire.”[2] Musk immediately exhibited the drive and ruthlessness that made him a billionaire in the first place. In his own offensive phrase, he and his myrmidons “spent the weekend feeding US AID into the wood chipper.”[3] He also sent his people into the Treasury Department Finance section, the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Education. In most cases, they seemed to be after the computer and record systems.[4] Along the way, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) e-mailed federal employees offering a choice between resigning now and receiving eight months’ pay or risking being fired at some point in the future.

Criticism followed. Senator Charles Schumer warned that “an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government.” Yale historian Timothy Snyder called it “a coup.” Journalist David Rothkopf warned of the approach of “the worst form of malevolent dictatorship.” Senator Elizabeth Warren insisted that “Elon Musk is seizing the power that belongs to the American people.”[5]

Lawyers saw the Musk task force’s actions as “wildly illegal” and unconstitutional. Neither they nor President Trump can close down federal agencies created by Congress or impound funds appropriated by Congress.

A final, perhaps revealing, criticism is of the people doing Musk’s work. They are “a coterie of engineers barely out of college.” They are “young” and they are “engineers.” In contrast, Charles Schumer is 74, Elizabeth Warren is 75, Dick Durbin is 79, Mark Warner is 70, Amy Klobuchar is 64, Tammy Baldwin is 62, Cory Booker is 55, Chris Murphy is 52. All are lawyers. Many of the younger-than-them people on their staffs doubtless are also lawyers.

Do engineers and lawyers think in different ways? Not being one or the other, it’s difficult to say. However, law schools instill a reverence for precedent.[6] Engineering schools emphasize problem-solving and simplification.[7] On the second issue of older versus younger, there are both stereotypes and more evidence-based analyses.[8] It should surprise no one that young engineers think and act differently from aged lawyers. One thing that is clear is that the “Old Order” is unable to address our national problems. Will a “New Order” make them worse?

[1] Musk is commonly identified as “the world’s richest person,” rather than as the “creator of several massively innovative companies—including one that may have to bring back two astronauts stranded on Gilligan’s Satellite.

[2] All Cabinet members are “unelected.” According to a 2021 article in Forbes, the median wealth in the “poor man’s cabinet” of Joe Biden was $5.5 million; average wealth was $6.8 million. The figures were far higher for the first Trump cabinet, and for the first Obama cabinet. Musk isn’t a cabinet-member, but the principle is the same.

[3] Bing Videos Well, he likes the Coen Brothers.

[4] “Musk launches offensive on government agencies,” The Week, 14 February 2025, p. 4.

[5] Although, in fact, the American people delegated all those powers to their elected government. The current head of the Executive Branch of that government is Donald Trump.

[6] Precedent – Wikipedia

[7] There is an interesting analysis at Do Engineers Think Differently? Yes, Learn The 6 Ways | Engineer Calcs

[8] See: Old Versus Young: The Cultural Generation Gap | The Pew Charitable Trusts and II. Generations Apart — and Together | Pew Research Center

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 5.

Posted on February 11, 2025 by jsh54

From the adoption of the Constitution until 1974, Presidents were assumed to have the power—inherent in their office–to not spend money appropriated by Congress.[1] In 1801, Thomas Jefferson chose to prioritize debt reduction over national defense. He impounded $50,000 that had been appropriated for gunboats requested by the Navy. Many of his successors impounded funds.

By the early 1970s, members of Congress believed that President Richard Nixon was abusing his official powers in a variety of ways. One example came in his impoundment of appropriated funds. Nixon held up spending on “water pollution control, education and health programs and highway and housing construction.”[2] The amount came to “$53.2‐billion during its first five years in office.”[3] In the context of other struggles with President Nixon, House Speaker Carl Albert called it a struggle between Congress and “one-man rule.” On a broadly bipartisan basis, Congress struck back. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 barred the President from impounding funds appropriated by Congress.[4] It did permit a Presidential request for “rescission” if approved by Congress.[5] Already mired in “Watergate,” Nixon signed the bill into law. As a result of Nixon’s surrender, the law was never tested before the Supreme Court. Do extreme cases make good law?

That doesn’t mean that Presidents think that impoundment is a bad idea. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all supported the restoration of the authority stripped from the office because of that damn fool Nixon. Other unsuccessful candidates for President—John McCain, Al Gore, and John Kerry—supported restoring the authority to impound.[6]

Which brings us to President Trump. During the campaign, he promised to “squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.”[7] From the get-go he stopped appropriated spending on D.I.E. initiatives; payments to non-governmental organizations; foreign aid (for a 90 day review period); and all federal loans and grants (almost immediately rescinded). Trump wants to bring the issue to the Supreme Court for the hearing it didn’t get in the 1970s.

The key issue here is self-restraint. The ballooning national debt, fueled by unbalanced annual budgets, threatens the financial stability of the government. Nixon’s abuse of the powers of his office went well beyond what other presidents had done, alarming many people in both parties. Trump seems determined to disrupt the established “way we do things around here” patterns that have taken the United States to the brink of multiple crises. He, too, is alarming people in both parties. He wouldn’t be on the verge of shifting the balance of power if all of us had shown more self-restraint. Not meant as an exculpation of Trump.

[1] Impoundment of appropriated funds – Wikipedia

[2] Richard D. Lyons, “Nixon’s Impounding of Billions in Federal Money Is Complicated Issue, Abounding in Misconceptions,” NYT, 7 October 1973.

[3] Compared to $39 billion impounded by Lyndon Johnson.

[4] Passed by the House 385-23 (204 Democrats and 181 Republicans voting in favor); passed by the Senate 80-0 (50 Democrats and 29 Republicans).

[5] Since then, Congress has rarely approved rescission requests, so Presidents rarely request them.

[6] President Joe Biden did not.

[7] Charlie Savage, “Are Presidents Empowered to Block Spending Authorized by Congress?” NYT, 29 January 2025.

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