We are likely in more agreement than you realize and it may be that you misconstrue my position.

I’ll admit that when I wrote my first comment, I was responding more to a stereotype of who I thought you were than to a person. After that, I read several posts here, and I realized that, yes, we agree more than we disagree.

My wife bought me a copy of the Federalist Papers for my birthday. I couldn’t stop thinking about how something like the Constitutional Convention would go over today. Imagine if the Iraq Study Group, the 9/11 Commission, et. al. had met in secret, refused to publish their notes, far exceeded their mandate (yes, Cheney’s energy taskforce met in secret and refused to publish records, but I believe they stayed inside their mandate), AND said the resulting document was an all-or-nothing affair.

I like to watch politics when it’s played competently, even if the other side gives me heartburn. I have to give them credit when they are clever. Unfortunately, the legendary politicians have all been replaced by clumsy look-alikes.

We are likely in more agreement than you realize and it may be that you misconstrue my position.

The whole context of the post was that I have, in a number of places, argued for vigorous checks and balances–and for that I was dubbed a “Congressional supremacist”. Rather, I think I am simply being constitutional.

Further, the current President has been rather hostile, I think to adequate oversight and generically to checks and balances. However, a lot of conservatives seem untroubled by that fact, which I, turn, find troubling. I am not sure how extolling increasing executive power is congruent with small government conservatism.

We don’t have, nor have we ever, had co-equal branches of government in the sense that all three have the same amount of power and influence over policy.

That is true; but they are “co-equal” in the sense that they aren’t able to order each other around. The only way checks and balances work is for each branch’s actions to be sufficient to block another branch. “The Supreme Court has declared my program Unconstitutional, but everyone knows they aren’t as powerful as the Presidency, therefore, …”

ALL pork comes from Congress, btw, because they write and pass the budget. Where is the evidence that giving the president more power would cut down on pork (or on spending in general?). … Being a “small government conservative” is not just about spending. It is about power and the potential for abuse of power by government.

I don’t think the President would cut down on pork in any way. A lot of pork is instigated by the President. I only wanted to point out that a strong legislature doesn’t lead to small government.

And, yes, a government of one king isn’t necessarily an acceptable government to a small government conservative. Britain’s Prime Minister gets yelled at by Parliament every week, and every time I’ve heard one of those exchanges I’ve thought “why don’t we do that?”

My point isn’t that any branch of government is more trustworthy or less of a threat. My point is that the system of formal checks and balances is ingenious because it forces the various branches to do a lot of informal things to get their way. The President can’t force Congress to vote on a particular law, but he can veto every single bill that comes out of Congress until they negotiate over the law the President wants.

I don’t want Congress to win by default, nor do I want the President to win by default. I don’t necessarily even want a consensus in every case, because there are times where a consensus is the worst possible answer (say, invading Cuba with ground forces but without air support). There are times you’ve got to go in with both feet or stay out with both feet, and putting one foot in is a bad idea. I think that co-equal branches in this sense are probably the best way to get good results over the long term.

Don’t forget that Madison was not only a congressional supremacist, but a House supremacist… Federalist 10, written before the Convention is all about making a single chamber dominant… Only when thwarted did Madison turn to institutional …

1) We don’t have, nor have we ever, had co-equal branches of government in the sense that all three have the same amount of power and influence over policy. That is a fallacy that we often are taught in high school.

Indeed, it is obvious, for example, that the President has far more foreign policy powers than the other two branches. And it is clear that Congress is ultimately the most powerful branch: given that every federal law must come through Congress, every federal dollar spent must be authorized by Congress, it is hard to say that they are anything but the most powerful branch. It is an empirical issue, not one of preference.

2) Max: you can’t do the A=B and B=C so A=C business with with branches. It simply is irrelevant for the conversation as to what SCOTUS can and cannot do vis-a–vis the President as some way of justifying what the President does vis-a-vis Congress.

3) MSS: I take your point, although I must confess that I prefer the separation of powers system to a more parliamentary-like one in this context. But that is a conversation for another day, I suspect.

4) Max: ALL pork comes from Congress, btw, because they write and pass the budget. Where is the evidence that giving the president more power would cut down on pork (or on spending in general?).

5) Max: the AG is not one of the president’s closest advisers in a technical sense, he is the head of a department and is directly answerable to the Congress. So yes, they can demand what they are demanding.

6) Being a “small government conservative” is not just about spending. It is about power and the potential for abuse of power by government. Executives have a greater capacity to abuse power than legislatures do on a day-to-day basis, since executive control the coercive apparatus of the state. As such, small government conservatives should be concerned about concentration of power in the executive.