Yep, that's why you need to convince Congress of that fact, as has been done in the past. Tariffs absolutely make sense as a strategic tool. There is no strategy here.
This ruling like most of the kleptocracy, will show the kleptocrats who is willing to lick boot and who will not. The goal, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, is to find the fascist threats and harm them.
This specifically will happen when businesses request the legal refund and the "deep state" gets to decide whether they deserve a refund.
I think a lot of time Congress being stuck is a feature, not a bug.
What happens when things aren't stuck, they change too much, in both frequency and magnitude. Kind of like when one person in the executive branch gets to make the rules. It's utter chaos and uncertainty on the business environment, even on the consumer environment, they have no idea what anything costs anymore. Am I paying double from a year ago because of tariffs or because it's easy for the seller to say tariffs, I'll never know. As a business, should I charge more now in anticipation for future uncertainty, has seemed simultaneously unfair and prudent. Now, should I reduce prices to go back to pre-tariff or just pocket it and call it inflation. Uncertainty is chaos, it's hard to plan for anything or make big decisions. This is why high(er) rates didn't hurt the housing market but all the Trump related uncertainty did.
With Congress completely stuck, the executive branch takes over a lot of functions that probably belong to the legislature. I say "probably" because the Constitution isn't really explicit about it, but it's what most people would infer.
The executive branch is less accountable than the legislative one. You elect only the top office, and only once every four years. With so much bundled into a single vote, it's nearly impossible to hold any specific action to account.
It doesn't work out great for the judicial branch, either. They often rule that a decision is based on the law as written, and it's up to the legislature to fix that -- while knowing full well that the legislature can't and won't. And they're not consistent about that; they'll also interpret a law to favor their ideology, and again Congress is in no position to clarify the intended interpretation.
Congress was deliberately set up to favor inaction, and not without reason. But that has reached the point where it practically doesn't even exist as a body, and its ability to serve as a check on the other branches has vanished, leading to even more abuses.
Congress could stop this nonsense tomorrow. The problem is not the body's powers, the problem is that the GOP is happy with Trump doing whatever the hell he wants.
Impeached, possibly. Conviction is effectively impossible.
That illustrates the structural problem. Congress was designed to have a high bar for action. But the bar is so high that it can't balance the other branches.
I'd argue that no system will work when so many voters are willing to overlook obvious crimes in order to remain in power. But even in less pathological circumstances, the legislative branch had too many internal checks to also participate in external ones.
It is because your congress and political system don't need coalition governments orvaby kind of agreements, winner takes it all. A true multy party system wpuld be mote flexible and less prone to catering to extremes on the left or right
The UK Parliament was by all means a two-party system, with Labour in one side and the Tories in the other. If anything it has become more diverse post-Brexit. Compare that with the Bundestag, where no party has more than a quarter of the seats.
There were 7 major political parties in Germany in 1933, so I’m unsure that there is overwhelming evidence that more than 2 political parties is protective against extremism.
There wasn't 7 major parties. Five maximum, even two could be argued. But '33 Germany is a weak argument against multiparty systems. Interwar Germany was not a well functioning democracy at all. They had armed street fights and deep political chaos going on for over two decades at that point. Hitler didn't have the majority and formed a coalition government. Only because Hindenburg agreed to dissolve the Reichstag could the nazis take power fully.
So the number of parties did actually block Hitler, and Presidential powers to subvert democracy was the problem. In modern multi party democracies an inability to form a government will result in a new election, not installing a dictator.
The uk doesnt really count, because it also has a fttp election system for the parliament, there are always 2 big parties and then some minor ones.
Better example would be Germany.
There were 7 major political parties in Germany in 1933, so I’m unsure that there is overwhelming evidence that more than 2 political parties is protective against extremism.
The problem is we've kicked this can down the road for decades. We can't just let the president perform Congress's job, no matter how "stuck" they are.
I actually think Congress is the one who controls the reins still with this one. All they have to do is simply say “no“ and stop falling in line with the party because their president is in charge. They won’t do it, but they need to just agree enough is enough and legislate instead of handing it off to the president so they can’t be held accountable for their votes. Still, at the end of the day the ball is in their court.
Unless the money is fully accounted and restituted, I believe we can assume what the strategy is.