Does the President have full dominion over the executive departments? For instance, if Ron Paul had been elected, could he send out an Executive Order and destroy the Department of Education without Congressional say?
Due to several Supreme court decisions, congressional abdication and a stupid electorate the President has nearly all the power of the government. Congress since the New Deal has been able to delegate legislative authority to federal agencies within their specific operations. Before the supreme court ruled that such congressional delegation was unconstitutional and that all laws had to pass both houses, the president's pen and of course the supreme courts review.
Now congress just passes the buck onto federal agencies and the politicians get the credit for creating the agency and then looks like a hero when it says the agency is out of line with some regulations it passed. The president appoints who heads these groups and can issue executive orders upon these agencies. It also used to be that Congress could stop the president from removing a federal official without it's consent but since the late 1920's the supreme court ruled that congress has no say in the matter.
Just check this statistic out. Since the New Deal, federal agencies through regulations and executive orders have passed so many laws that you need two hundred bound volumes to contain on your bookshelf. By comparison ALL the laws the federal congress has ever successfully passed both houses and the president pen since the first federal congress to today can be contained in thirty five bound volumes and this collection includes laws that were struck down by the supreme court so the actual number of standing congressional laws is less. Essentially there is no way the Supreme Court can review all congressional laws and all federal agency regulations under this regime. I cannot recall anytime that the supreme court overturned an agency's issued regulations.
Prior to the present situation this relatively hard system of passing law also protected federalism to a good degree since both houses of congress have to agree to the exact same wording and description in a bill. Not to mention it had to pass through a committee in both the senate and the house before it could be voted on the floor by a quorum (a quorum is also something no longer enforced).
Rodahue:For instance, if Ron Paul had been elected, could he send out an Executive Order and destroy the Department of Education without Congressional say?
Sorry for that long diatribe above. Ron Paul could issue executive orders essentially nullifying the departments operations but he could not abolish the agency outright. It essentially would be a shell of it's former self. Also he could fire alot of different people but not all since clerical workers are protected by civil servant laws. This is all because the president cannot repeal a law but depending on how the law is worded he can have broad authority over it's implementation.
If Ron Paul were president he would be able to essentially refuse to allow the departments/agencies to do anything.
Deist:If Ron Paul were president he would be able to essentially refuse to allow the departments/agencies to do anything.
How about the IRS and the FED? Would a president be able to do the same with those, ie create non-functioning shells?
The Federal Reserve is a "private" entity so he has little authority on that unless the Bernake stepped down and he refused to appoint someone as it's head. As for the IRS he could definitely make that a shell.
All of this assumes that the ruling class would let any of that happen. They wouldn't. Ron Paul, even if he was elected (another decision mostly handled by the ruling class), would end up being framed in some scandal, or assassinated, before he could really do anything.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.