[vezzy-fnord]

Checks and balances are fine in theory. In practice, the executive and judiciary are overpowered. Judicial review quickly becomes judicial activism. Executive orders are a unilateral get-out-of-checks-and-balances-free card in many cases, lamentations of scholars notwithstanding. Additionally, there is no proper "federalism" so to speak of. It's a marble cake federalism of various entangled relationships and procurements between federal, state and private institutions with disparate enforcement and contractual obligations.

Americans have deified their Founding Fathers to such an absurd extent that they seem to be unable to think critically. That maybe Hamilton and Madison were engaging in wishful thinking. That maybe the anti-federalists were right. That maybe Henry Clay's American System and his antecedent in Hamilton largely botched the ideal separation-of-powers republic from the beginning.

[ktRolster]

<quote> Executive orders are a unilateral get-out-of-checks-and-balances-free card in many cases</quote> If congress wants to, they can overturn most of the executive orders by passing a law. It's not like those are magical powers.

[vezzy-fnord]

Assuming they can get past the veto-2/3 majority dance. It also strongly depends on the nature of the EO. Major economic restructurings have been struck down before, though usually by judicial review. Military deployments, most infamously WWII-era internment, are less likely to be challenged - especially if they're perceived as "ephemeral" irrespective of consequences.

[mentat]

And congress isn't overpowered because it just makes laws and authorizes spending?