In America’s Constitution, the Congress is given the power to declare war and to set tariff rates. Over time, that power has gradually shifted to the executive branch. For instance, today we saw this tweet:
I think it’s fair to say that America’s Founders did not envision the President having the power to destroy Turkey’s economy. (Or Iran’s.) On the other hand, this doesn’t necessarily mean the current system is undesirable.
Here I’d like to side step two controversial issues. Is the use of executive power in recent decades unconstitutional? And are President Trump’s specific policy decisions unwise?
Instead, I’d like to focus on a different question. Even if recent presidents have behaved lawfully, using powers delegated by Congress, and even if President Trump’s foreign policy decisions are as wise as he claims, is this a good system? I will argue that it is not.
The Founder’s set up a system where policy would be made by Congress, which is comprised of 535 individuals. This can be seen as being based on the “wisdom of crowds”, the idea that decisions made by large groups of people will be wiser, on average, than those made by individuals.
Here the term “on average” is very important. It’s easy to find cases where a particular autocrat made better policy decisions than a large Congress. Contrast Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew with India’s Congress. But a more systematic look at the data would show that most of the greatest policy disasters in human history were done by individuals, often with at least quiet opposition from top government policymakers. Hitler’s decision to launch WWII and Mao’s decision to launch the Great Leap Forward are just two of the many examples that I could cite.
So while large groups of people can make mistakes, the Founders believed that serious mistakes would be more common if a single autocrat made decisions with no checks and balances.
It’s possible that America will not always be led by a statesman of “great and unmatched wisdom”. When that day arrives, there is a danger that a reckless leader could make a serious policy mistake.
The Cato Institute has long warned about the unbridled use of executive power. Recent events have strengthened their argument, regardless of what you think of President Trump’s policies. To understand why, you need to recall that the foreign policy establishment in both parties has been highly skeptical of the Cato position, viewing it as naive, as not sufficiently aware of how a dangerous world requires a powerful executive branch.
Importantly, that DC conventional wisdom is also highly contemptuous of President Trump’s decision-making style, which they view as reckless, emotional, and not based on well-established principles.
Thus there are two possibilities. One is that the establishment is wrong about Trump. That’s certainly possible, but it’s also an indictment of almost all the arguments that have ever been marshaled in favor of the “Washington Consensus” in foreign policy. If Trump is right then the “emperor has no clothes”, that is, serious foreign policy experts of the conventional school don’t know what they are talking about. After all, Trump almost completely rejects conventional methods of doing foreign policy.
Another possibility is that Trump is just as wild and reckless and impetuous as his critics in the foreign policy establishment claim. But that view greatly strengthens the Cato argument for returning policymaking powers to Congress. If Trump is as reckless as some claim, then the president should not have the power to unilaterally destroy countries such as Turkey, just because that country made him angry.
I strongly recommend a new Cato paper by Christopher A. Preble, John Glaser, and A. Trevor Thrall:
America’s outsized role in the international system is in part justified on the grounds that U.S. leadership is morally superior to the alternatives and that America is guided by higher principles. One need not confine oneself to the Trump years to appreciate the weakness of this claim.
But Donald Trump does clarify the danger. His ascendance to the highest office in the nation is perhaps the most compelling illustration of the hazards of vesting the presidency with so much unbridled power, both domestically and internationally. The presidency, and the global military presence it commands, must be cut down to size and properly checked by its co-equal branch. With or without Trump, any world order that depends for its survival on the whims of a single person in a single branch of government in a single country is simply untenable.
Again, this isn’t about President Trump’s policies. If you are a fan of Trump’s policies, just imagine a future president with Trump’s personality and shoot from the hip style, but that had a set of policy preferences 180 degrees removed from your policy preferences. Would you want that president to have wide discretion to set policy, or should Congress set policy and have the president faithfully execute the laws that Congress enacts? I’ll go with the “wisdom of crowds” as the lesser of evils, at least in the long run. The Framers were smarter than many of the DC elite believe.
PS. Yes, I was being sarcastic in one of the sentences above. No points for guessing which one.
PPS. Do not take this post as in any way being supportive of Turkey’s war on the Kurds. I’m not a fan of the Turkish government.
READER COMMENTS
Lorenzo from Oz
Oct 7 2019 at 8:57pm
Even bigger question that underlies the excellent question you raise: is a Presidential republic a good idea?
After all, the system the US Founders came up with is notionally based on Montesquieu’s ridiculous mischaracterisation of the British system of government. (If they had really wanted to replicate the British system, all members of Cabinet would have to be members of Congress and there would be a Head of Government who was not Head of State.)
What they were really replicating was the colonial system, except with elected Governors rather than appointed ones. In the British colonies that stayed in the empire (remembering that only 13 of the 35 British colonies in the Americas revolted: basically, the ones that thought they could do without Imperial protection in a dangerous world), the Governors devolved into local equivalents and representatives of the monarch and they created Parliamentary states.
Scott Sumner
Oct 7 2019 at 11:30pm
Interesting comments. I’ve always tended to favor proportional representation, perhaps above a certain threshold (as in Germany).
Lorenzo from Oz
Oct 12 2019 at 8:34pm
There are some good arguments for proportional representation. I dislike it for the lower house because it tends to create a situation where the political class deals dominate government formation, in a way that weakens the connection between votes and outcomes. But I think it is a great idea for upper houses.
Which is how we do it in Australia federally and in most states, as it happens 🙂
nobody.really
Oct 8 2019 at 12:10am
A quibble:
To clarify, “the Founders” decided on each state to have two Senators and at least one Representative, and no more than one Representative for every 30,000 persons. But it wasn’t until the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 that Congress set the maximum number of Representatives at 435. That 435, plus the 100 Senators, makes up the 535 figure.
Scott Sumner
Oct 8 2019 at 12:56am
Yes, I meant “now comprised”
Philo
Oct 8 2019 at 11:45am
Actually, you meant “now composed.”
Scott Sumner
Oct 8 2019 at 1:51pm
Sigh, I need an editor. 🙂
nobody.really
Oct 8 2019 at 12:56am
Yeah, I’m not persuaded that the Executive needs to exercise all the discretion that he currently does. And when Congress concluded that the Nixon White House had illustrated the problems with this level of presidential discretion, it adopted all kinds of reforms–including the War Powers Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. So perhaps soon (following the removal of the current president?), Congress will be in a similar mood.
Right now, the problems of unbridled Executive discretion are foremost in the minds of policy wonks. But we must bear in mind the opposite problem of gridlock. Do we think that it would be easier for a “special interest” (including a foreign special interest) to exercise undue influence over the Executive–who is under constant attention–or over any one of a number of powerful legislators who could provoke gridlock through inconspicuous means? Clearly, there are trade-offs.
But to take one example, what urgency requires the president to be able to implement tariffs at will? We don’t let the president adopt treaties at will; that requires Senate action. So what makes tariffs different? Conjecture: There is consensus that the Executive should have the authority to engage in rapid military actions against an enemy. In the interest of discouraging the Executive from doing so, we want to give the Executive a full range of less drastic alternatives as well. Thus, instead of shaking our heads at Trump’s tariffs, we should be celebrating the fact that he hasn’t launched any wars. It’s a glass-half-full thing.
In addition to seeking new authority to rein in the Executive, have we fully exploited the existing authority? In Lucia v. SEC, 138 S. Ct. 2044 (2018), SCOTUS concluded that administrative law judges (ALJs) were “officers of the United States,” and thus could not exercise authority unless they had been appointment via the Constitution’s appointments clause. But if this is true of ALJs, surely it’s true of the heads of administrative agencies–yet a bizarre number of them have not been confirmed by the Senate as the appointments clause requires. It is unclear to me whether any of these unconfirmed “acting” heads have the power to alter any of the decisions made by the last confirmed person to hold the position. No mere statute would have the power to overrule a Constitutional requirement. Has anyone tested this in court?
the Supreme Court held that ALJs in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are inferior officers of the United States — that is, of higher status than “mere employees”
7. Id. at 2052.
— and that their appointment is therefore subject to the Appointments Clause of the Constitution,
8. See id. at 2055.
which requires the appointment of “inferior officers” to be made by the President, courts, or heads of departments.
9. U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2.
Scott Sumner
Oct 8 2019 at 1:22am
Lots of good points. I’m not qualified to comment on the legal issues.
Peter
Oct 10 2019 at 5:49am
Just a quip but you say gridlock like it’s a bad thing. Plus let’s not pretend as you do the SCOTUS will ever rule fundamentally against the other two branches. End of the day if gridlock to the point of the US collapsing were to ever happen you can rest assured that the SCOTUS will bless wherever unconstitutional action those two branches or it’s employees take to break it.
Thaomas
Oct 8 2019 at 6:40am
There is a very good case for Congressional restraint on Presidential powers in both foreign and domestic policy. Even where powers are delegated, criteria can be laid out. Regulatory agencies can be required to be guided by, not just to perform cost-benefit tests subject to Congressional oversight. Undesirable grants of authority like the subsidies to offset the effect of the trade wars on specific constituencies can simply be removed. Congress can reclaim the ability to change tariffs and quantitative controls on imports and exports, although the ability of the executive to propose a bundle of tariffs to be voted en bloc is probably a good idea. Declarations of emergency and exercise of “trading with the enemy acts” could require Congressional ratification to remain in effect after some short period.
Alan Goldhammer
Oct 8 2019 at 8:26am
The US Congress inaction on meaningful oversight has led to the growth of Presidential power and the Administrative State. Until this is reversed that trend will continue. Current efforts on the part of President Trump to stonewall every information request from the House have led directly to the Impeachment inquiry. A lot of this will be going through the Federal court system but likely not be adjudged until sometime next year when it may be too late (most egregious is the refusal to hand over President Trump’s tax returns to the Ways and Means Committee which is a statutory requirement).
It’s going to take a bipartisan effort to move Congress to where it should be and I see no signs of that happening.
John Arthur
Oct 8 2019 at 11:39am
I agree with you Scott. I would go as far as state that the Indian congress is doing alot better than people assume. India is a very diverse racial and cultural nation, with much tension between the Muslims and the Hindus. Both groups are very large and counteract each other. In contrast, Singapore has had a dominant Chinese majority that can decide any election, and which supports strongly Lee Kuan Yew’s party and policies.
India likely had to first get everyone on the same page, so to speak, in terms of wants and needs. Lee Kuan Yew would have failed at bridging that divide. I think India’s growth prospects, will be higher than before due to this gap slowly being bridged.
E.X Bangladesh is a good example of this. For the longest time, the Radical Islamic and Moderate Muslim community had been fighting, but the Moderate Muslims won in the early 2000s. The result was after decades of complete stagnation, Bangladesh is growing at ever increasing rates while the rest of Asia stagnates, and has built an industrial base unlike the other South Asian countries, following in the footsteps of East Asians.
PS: The Asian Development Bank has Bangladesh growing an average of around 10% over the next decade, and it is likely that it will suprass India and Pakistan in Gdp Per Capita at PPP.
Scott Sumner
Oct 8 2019 at 1:54pm
Agree about Bangladesh doing better now, but “the rest of Asia stagnates” is way too strong. There is now pretty strong growth in a number of Asian countries, including China, Vietnam, India, Philippines, and decent growth in other places like Indonesia and Malaysia.
Brian Donohue
Oct 8 2019 at 11:52am
The centripetal force of the Executive has eroded Congressional authority pretty consistently for most of the history of the Republic, almost as if it was bound to happen. I mean, Rome?
The specific case, though, is I think a good time to take Trump seriously but not literally.
I suspect a lot of people have been googling Kurds in the past 24 hours and getting up to speed on the plight of these people.
Kurds have no illusions about the perfidy of America and other Western powers, and they have endured and will endure because they will FIGHT.
But Turkey is the local 800 lb gorilla, and a country with a long history of mutual antagonism with the Kurds (and other ethnic groups, like, say, Armenians.)
Trump is telling Turkey to figure something out with the Kurds. It’s not our thing.
Scott Sumner
Oct 8 2019 at 1:56pm
Brian, The post isn’t really about the wisdom of this or that Kurdish policy, it’s about the methods used to reach a policy decision.
Thomas Sewell
Oct 9 2019 at 8:23pm
This is largely a Public Choice issue, created by congressional incentives.
First, Congress has chosen to delegate more and more authority in virtually all areas to the executive branch over time. War and Trade are only two of innumerable examples. This saves them the effort of making tough decisions (lots of friction involved) and removes much of their electoral accountability for those decisions.
Second, Congress is currently incentivized to systemically make poor decisions in certain areas. For example, even while publicly decrying budget deficits every election cycle, they perennially agree in Congress to continue them.
Capt. J Parker
Oct 11 2019 at 4:18pm
The “wisdom of the crowds” argument against an imperial presidency suffers from the flaw that it minimizes the fact that the president is elected by all the people. So, the President may be the one elected official most representative of the wisdom of the crowds. Take Syria policy as a case in point. We know the foreign policy establishment both left and right (with notable exceptions) condemns Trumps recent actions with respect to Turkey/Syria/the Kurds. But, where do the “crowds” stand on this? And by “crowds” I do not mean Congress or the Washington consensus, I mean American voters. I’m betting that those “crowds” are really pretty tired of endless middle-east interventions on the part of the US and for the most part they support Trumps policy goal of untangling us from the region (or would support it if not for Trump derangement syndrome.) If this means that the Washington foreign policy consensus emperor has no clothes my response would be: “Who elected them Emperor?”
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