In an article published in the January 3, 2025, edition of The Wall Street Journal, the two persons pictured above, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, are given credit for providing the nation with an opportunity to "rediscover the power of Congress." Here's an excerpt from that article:
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency is flying higher than a meme stock. Like the SpaceX platform catching a Falcon rocket on re-entry, the two men have captured a weary country’s imagination with a vision for an institution that could do the seemingly impossible: hold federal agencies accountable for failure, reduce profligate spending and promote productive reform.
In theory, such an institution already exists. It’s called the U.S. Congress, and the founders envisioned it as the dominant branch of government. In practice, however, many Americans don’t recognize this role for Congress because the legislative branch has systematically surrendered its constitutional authority to the executive and judiciary, especially when it comes to spending.
Understanding that Ramaswamy is no longer part of the team, what do I think about The Journal's assertion? Well, my response to what The Journal says is both "Yes," and "No."
With respect to the "Yes," I completely agree with The Journal's observation about the power of the Congress, and about the leading role that the Congress is supposed to play in our government. I also agree that the Congress has systematically surrendered its powers. This is not a "news flash" if you understand what the United States Constitution provides.
It is no accident that Article I of the Constitution, outlining the role and responsibilities of the Congress, comes first. It is no accident that the Constitution assigns its directives to the President in Article II. Congress comes first, in our system of government. Congress MAKES the laws (the rules that determine what our government is authorized and directed to do, and the rules that state what the government is not permitted to do). The President's role, according to the Constitution, is to "execute" the laws made by the Congress, and, in fact, this is, essentially, the basic and main role of the President. The President is to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" [Article II, Section 3].
So, definitely "Yes," as to the statement about how our government is supposed to work. "No" is the response, however, to any suggestion that Musk (Ramaswamy having now dropped out) is trying to advance this proposition. Musk's agenda, the agenda of the so-called "DOGE" (Department of Governmental Efficiency), which is not really a "department" of the government at all, is to do the very opposite of what the Constitution provides. In fact, Trump's DOGE dodge is a completely unauthorized effort initiated by the president, without Congressional approval, to eliminate the power of the Congress, placing virtually all powers in the hands of the president, and turning our democratic self-government into an autocracy.
That this is the objective that Musk is pursuing was evident even before our president actually became the president. As you may or may not remember, shortly after the 2024 election, before Trump took office, Elon Musk started telling the Congress what to do. His idea, in case you have forgotten, was that the Congress should stop paying the nation's bills, and that government employees should simply go home and wait (without pay) for January 20th, after which, of course, he and Ramaswamy, with help from the incoming president, would then initiate the actions needed to fire almost all of them.
If we would like to reinvigorate the United States government - on the basis of what the Constitution provides, which The Journal article seems to indicate is what it thinks would be a good idea - we will have to take action both "short-term," and "long-term."
Hopefully, the "long-term" could come promptly, but in the "long-term" Congress will have to begin asserting itself, when the president seeks to capture sole control over essential governmental powers that the Constitution entrusts to Congress. Our current president is fond of the expression, "I alone can fix it." This is a prescription for autocracy (and "oligarchy," too, since the role now being played by Musk indicates that president Trump is willing to empower the billionaires of his acquaintance by allowing them to share - or perhaps even usurp - his claimed, "I alone can do it" powers).
So, how do we try to sustain our democratic self-government in the "short term"? Again, Congress must assert itself, and insist upon its own powers. That is the basic prescription - and that is exactly what happened when Musk started giving orders, prior to Trump actually taking office. Those were orders that the Congress just flat out ignored. Given the current composition of Congress, controlled by the Republican Party, that means that the suggestions of Congress Member Tom Suozzi should be taken seriously.
Suozzi is a "conservative" Congress Member, from New York State, but he is a Democrat. Suozzi says that the Congress needs to "try something different to deal with Trump." His suggestion is that the Democrats should work positively with the Republicans in Congress, to insure that Congress does not abandon its powers to the president. That is what Suozzi means when he calls for "trying something different" with respect to Trump - not obdurate, total opposition to everything, but efforts to work with colleagues in the Congress to accomplish something that reflects the kind of compromise that can accommodate at least some of which Republican Party Members of Congress are trying to achieve.
That is what happened when the Congress stymied Musk's assertion that he could tell Congress what to do. We need the Congress to be functional, and insist upon its primacy in our governmental system. It is simply not true that by electing Donald Trump, the voters were telling Congress to do whatever Trump, as president, commands. If Congress can't be made to work, given its current composition, Trump, as president usurps its powers. So, in the "short-term," Democrats in Congress, working as best they can with the Republicans in Congress, needs to insure that what a majority of the Congress wants to do takes primacy over deference to the president.
But what about a possible "long-term" solution? In the "long-term," the people of the United States (you and me) need to start controlling Congress. To do that, ordinary citizens are going to have to reallocate their time, and spend a lot of the time that they now use watching Netflix, or posting on social media, or otherwise ignoring the responsibilities of self-government, and must work, instead, with their friends and neighbors at the local level, so that each Member of Congress is working under the threat of that Member's removal from Congress at the next election, should that Congress Member not do what the majority of the voters in that Congress Member's district wants that Congress Member to do.
In other words, "democratic" government means "representative" government, a government in which our elected officials truly do "represent" what the people who voted for them want. If you don't believe that is possible then you can just forget about what is currently called "democracy." I do not take a despairing view. My personal experience is that representative government does work, but only when those being represented (all of us) are willing to put the time in to make sure that our representatives actually do vote the way we want them to. If we are not willing or able to take responsibility for making sure that's true, then say "goodbye" to democratic self-government.
Running our government is exciting work. It's fun! Take it from me, I know. I have personal experience.
If we have slacked off in recent years (and we have), we can reassert ourselves - and we should. To give you a musical reference, click on the video link, below, and listen to Waxahatchee (formerly known as Katie Crutchfield) sing "right back to it." Where self-government is at issue, getting "Right Back To It" is exactly the prescription that we actually need.
All I am asking is that we reignite our love affair with democratic self-government.
Love our government? Yeah!
Love our government so much that we just can't keep our hands off it? Yeah! Really!
Let's get right back to it!
It is definitely not too late!
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