Is President Trump relying too much on EOs?

Risky Thicket said:

Look, this is all really about a man who doesn't have a full grasp of the job. I don't know whether Trump is incompetent because he isn't prepared and does not read, or that he is unable to focus on issues and possible solutions long enough to see the long view, or that he just doesn't want to do the heavy lifting that the position requires. One way or another Trump because of his great weaknesses has become a rubber stamp for Bannon who is de facto President of the United States.

Bannon has convinced Trump (and given the above that probably isn't difficult for Bannon to do) to rule by fiat and that is what Trump is doing. Bannon and Miller write EOs, sell Trump on the idea and then Trump agrees and signs.

Trump and his cabal of enablers are convinced that they have to get the wagons in a circle. The GOP controls both houses of Congress, the WH, and the majority of state governments yet Trump and his secretive and paranoid tiny inner circle are acting as if they are about to be overtaken by Democrats. If there has ever been an administration in recent memory that should be open, transparent, truthful and dedicated to following the Democratic process it should be this one. What we have is the exact opposite.

Either Trump and his minions Make America Great or they continue to excuse the paranoia that emanates from the White House. Attempting to excuse Trump's EOs and the like by saying "Obama did it first or often" is nothing more than making America the Same Again while blaming Trump's actions on his predecessor.

Trump continues to insist that everyone loves him while he continues to act as if no one does. Trump can't seem to decide if he is a president, a dictator or the semi-leader of a political cluster****. One thing for certain, Trump is not leading, he is not working with Congress, he is not involving government in his edicts and the blowback will one day become a **** storm because the People and their representatives were not fully involved in the process. Oddly enough circumvention of the People is very establishment politics. Trump has upped the ante and involves the People less and is doing it earlier. Trump is taking the People out of the process rather than involving them and informing them.

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Zyphlin said:

No, it absolutely is a technicality. First, there was no "loser" or "winner" there; neither side received all of what they wanted. EVERYTHING that was part of the executive order was NOT stayed, but some part of it was. Second, for them to have "LOST" the case, the case would need to be resolved; it is not. A stay is a temporary suspension of something related to the case that is on-going. It is akin to losing a motion; if someone fails at getting a motion they wanted, they did not "lose the case".

Secondly, please do some damn research and get your facts straight. There has not been anywhere NEAR 45 Executive Orders put forward this far. And even the executive order that did have judicial action taken on it, it was only taken against a limited subset of the entire Order as a whole.

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faithful_servant said:

I think that we need to revisit how EOs are issued. I'd like to see them go through SCOTUS. Once the EO is signed, SCOTUS gets 24 hours to review it and with a 6 vote majority, reject it. Then the EO has a 30 day window in which it is in effect, but that the Senate can over-ride it with a 2/3 majority.

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radcen said:

It's clear he's been relying on them.

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SmokeAndMirrors said:

Right. Court isn't court, loss isn't loss. Words don't mean anything anymore. Life sure has changed since Jan 20.

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Also, I didn't say there have been 45 EO's. Read it again.

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Mycroft said:

I haven't seen Trump rely on EO's at all.

When he follows Obama's example...when he proposes legislation, when Congress turns him down and when he takes matters in his own hands by way of EO...then we can talk about whether he's relying on EO's too much.

In other words, before he can work with Congress, Congress has to actually be doing something.

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Zyphlin said:

How in the world do you come to that conclusion? By what quantitative or qualitative manner of analysis do you reach that conclusion? Or are you just going off of "gut instinct", in which case why should anyone really care about your opinion?

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radcen said:

You lost me right off the bat with that one. It's clear he's been relying on them. He makes it a point to publicize them so all his supporters will continue to fawn all over him.

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faithful_servant said:

I think that we need to revisit how EOs are issued. I'd like to see them go through SCOTUS. Once the EO is signed, SCOTUS gets 24 hours to review it and with a 6 vote majority, reject it. Then the EO has a 30 day window in which it is in effect, but that the Senate can over-ride it with a 2/3 majority.

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radcen said:

But, is it the best way to do it? EOs can be easily repealed by a future President. A Congressional-passed law is much harder to undo. Maybe he and Congress will follow-up and make it more solid, but I'd be surprised if that happens.

And, what's the hurry? Does he fear he's going to be assassinated or impeached in the first 90 days? Does he fear he'll lose his supporters if it happens on Day 180 via law as opposed to Day 3 via EO?

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radcen said:

Maybe you should be intellectually honest and quote me in context. The answer was right there for you to read. Simple observational skills tells anyone even remotely objective that he's been more focused on using EOs than other methods. The question is only how much is too much. :roll:

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faithful_servant said:

I think that we need to revisit how EOs are issued. I'd like to see them go through SCOTUS. Once the EO is signed, SCOTUS gets 24 hours to review it and with a 6 vote majority, reject it. Then the EO has a 30 day window in which it is in effect, but that the Senate can over-ride it with a 2/3 majority.

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BrewerBob said:

Yes, he is. And so did Obama and others before him. EOs have gotten out of hand. EOs should only affect how employees of the Executive Branch perform their duties. I do not believe that an EO should be able to drastically impact the lives of people who are not federal employees. If you want to do that then you should have to pass a law.

Over the decades the Executive has been accumulating more and more power and nothing has been done about it. Maybe now that it has culminated with that power resting in the hands of Trump, people will take notice of the problem.

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Zyphlin said:

Your context doesn't change anything.

"Simple observational skills tells..." is basically a BSing way to say "my opinion tells me".

Actual FACTUAL data shows that he's issued less in this time span then some similar predecessors. Actual FACTUAL data shows that he's in line with the standard that Presidents have employed for decades. Actual FACTUAL data indicates that usage of EO's in the early days of the Presidency is essentially a norm of how the job functions. Now, you claim that he is "relying" on them, and you say your proof is somehow because he's more "focused" on them then other methods. And you base that off of...? What exactly? Are you aware of what interactions he and his administration have with congress in terms of getting new laws worked out. Furthermore, for laws ALREADY ON THE BOOKS, what "other method" would he be able to be "focused on" other than Executive Orders in terms of directing his executive agencies to take action?

Now yes, how much is too much is a legitimate question to be asked. But I'd ask you again, if you're coming to such a determination, what qualitative or quantitative information are you using to make such a judgement? Is this based off actual facts, history, or context or are you just going with your gut saying "ehhh, I don't like him and what he's doing, so it's too much".

See, unlike your posts in this thread, I've gone into great detail on my thoughts. I've provided actual facts with my thoughts. I've provided actual sourced references with my thoughts. All you've done is throw out useless and hollow insults about intellectual honesty.

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radcen said:

Right. And I don't want to give the impression that I'm blaming Trump solely for this. I have/had serious disagreements with Obama's use of EOs, as well. I felt that Obama over-relied on them far too much.

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Phoenix said:

Factual data says he has issued several Executive orders and signed 0 laws from Congress. Sounds like he is solely relying on EOs

Whitehouse.gov Executive orders

Whitehouse.gov Legislation.

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Zyphlin said:

(...CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)

Second, no, I don't believe so within the context of the situation at hand. Executive Actions are the manner in which the President is able to direct his subordinate executive agencies on the manner in which they are to enforce the laws on the books.

Over the past ~60 years, the average amount of EO's in the first 100 days was 18. Obama had 19, GWB had 11. (Source). So far, Trump has signed 7 executive orders (SOURCE). While he has been signing them at a fair clip, this isn't unusual nor should it just be assumed that it can be extrapolated out to the full 100 days.

Bill Clinton signed only 2 from Jan 20th through Jan 25, but signed 4 months later between April 20th and April 25th. GWB had a smattering throughout each month of his first 100 days, with his most being 5 in February. Obama had signed 9 by the end of January, and 14 by February 6th. But they came in 1 or 2 a month after that point during his first 100 days. (SOURCE). The point being, Presidents tend to have a flurry of these over a short time, but that flurry is not consistently kept up throughout the whole 100 days.

So historically, Trump is not out of line with what we've seen over the past 6 to 7 decades. Hell, he's not significantly out of line with what we saw just 8 years ago.

Now, if we're talking more broadly about ALL executive actions...perhaps he is going overboard. But here, it's hard to really speak to it in an educated fashion when considering context. Why? Because we simply don't have any record, nor CAN we have a record, of how many ACTIONS were taken by past presidents. Actions were not required to be announced, so while Trump is making many of his public, the reality is that he could be signing some that AREN'T announced. More to the point of context, past Presidents could've done none of these or hundreds of these, and we'd have no real way to know. What's more, trying to research it is problematic, as there was far less care about "executive actions" within the media at the time of Obama coming in. So while someone may have a gut feeling that Trump is utilizing his Executive Powers too much, there's no real way to quantify that with the past OTHER than looking at Executive Orders.

Third, we can look at what these Executive Orders, and especially the Executive Actions are doing. Are these new things, seemingly born from Trump's desire for how to run his administration, and just dealing with actual law? Or are these things that are amending or changing EXISTING EO's or PM's that were on the books to tailor them to be more in line with Trumps views. The former is essentially the expansionist use of Executive Power; the latter is simply working within the framework of executive power that was already in place.

Fourth, and the big one, is the legitimacy of them plays into how I view it. The ability to utilize Executive Orders, and to a lesser extent PM's, are something that is established with the President. HOWEVER, there are caveats. Law cannot be created, and the Presidents authority and latitude on what kind of Actions he can direct or suggest is largely tied to the will of congress. If it's in line with the will of congress, he has wide latitude. If it's against it, he has very limited. If congress has issued no indication of a stance, then it's somewhere in between. In these particular instances, it appears that in general it is in line with the will of the congress, and thus he has a pretty wide latitude on how he wants to direct things.

Considering what he's done so far is in line with what he campaigned on, in line with what he outlined in his first 100 days proposal, do not seem on the whole to be unconstitutional, appears to be within the scope of the Presidency, is not outside the norm in terms of quantity for an new POTUS, and is in line with the will of congress giving him broad latitude....I don't have a huge issue, from a legal or pragmatic stance, with how he's handled the EOs/PMs. While I may dislike specific individual ones, I do not begrudge a President the ability to attempt to enact, to the extent of his OWN power, what he campaigned on.

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Fiddytree said:

You know what I like about this? I said the same thing in two sentences, just before you went into extraordinary detail. Haha.

Sent from my LG-H910 using Tapatalk

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TheGoverness said:

IMO, while I don't have a problem with trump issuing EO's (Although he is overdoing it), I still think Trump should try working with Congress more. The Republican's have the majority, so he has the advantage.

If I was him, I wouldn't let that opportunity go to waste.

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radcen said:

Is President Trump relying too much on EOs? Or, should he be working with Congress more?

Please, give example(s) to support your conclusion.

"EO" = Executive Order, for those who might not know.

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“I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” he said at his first Cabinet meeting of the year. Outlining the strategy, Obama said he plans to use his pen to sign executive actions and his phone to convene outside groups in support of his agenda if Congress proves unable or unwilling to act on his priorities.

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Ikari said:

I hated the vast number of EO's Obama was putting out as well.

I think there is legitimate use of the EO within the powers of the President to address the agencies they control to act within the law as prescribe by Congress and upheld by the Courts. But I also see them being relied upon too heavily and in some instances as a way for the President to essentially legislate by himself.

Congress is the legislative branch, and they are to be the most powerful branch of our government. It necessarily must be that way. The President just executes the laws and treaties of Congress.

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Ikari said:

Clinton did his fair share, Bush too. I do realize the EO has been used going back to Washington. As I said, there is legitimate use. However, its as you say (and that was my point), the EO is being used too much as some Presidential power and a way to, essentially, bypass the Congress. We cannot have that. Congress has ceded far too much of its power and the President has assumed far too much. Our system was never meant to be run by just one man.

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Caine said:

Actually, Both Bush Presidents used EOs far less than Reagan, Clinton, and Obama.

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