What would happen if the President and his party simply declined to appoint or confirm anybody for anything? At some point, I presume the government would simply collapse.
Any thoughts?
Well, you would do well to define what you mean by “government would simply collapse”. All of those jobs are people doing something, making the wheels turn for whatever reason. From a partisan standpoint, I want people in positions to make sure water is clean and food is safe, etc., “trains running on time” and all that. Most of the people doing the boots on the ground jobs are not at the appointee level, but leadership is - and it has been my experience that leadership is necessary, in the long run.
This article makes a few points about this. One being:
“If Trump wants to change things, he should put his own people in there, rather than having the government run by civil servants.”
I presume you mean all the Deputy Secretaries and “They-in-charge-of-various-parts-of- the-Department” appointments, as most of the Secretaries have been confirmed.
The answer is much like a movie quote on the worth of Jerusalam: “Nothing. Everything”.
The U.S. Governments’ bureaucracys’ favorite three words is “Delegation of Authority”. Whoever is subordinate to the position is ‘delegated’ to hold that job, with full authority and signature powers. It may rotate among sub-chiefs of equal rank, say 30-60 days each. But the job is being executed, by career government employees.
So ‘nothing’ in that the government is not going to collapse. ‘Everything’ in that those people will most likely, lacking instruction from above (the unappointed Deputies), continue with ‘business as usual’, which means policies and procedures as they were under Obama. Change comes slowly in any large organization, and if the top man is different, that doesn’t change much unless his ‘minions’ are in place.
So it is in Trump’s and the Republican interests to fill those slots. Why they haven’t done so with more alacrity is a puzzlement. It could be lack of qualified people that meet the ‘litmus’ tests of the GOP/Trump or the lack of a strong White House structure plus GOP infighting that is slowing the process down. Or perhaps something else.
IMHO as always. YMMV.
Every agency has deputies that are career civil servants who get appointed as “acting” heads of department, who can act to keep things going indefinitely. But it will be running on autopilot, so if Trump wants any policy changes, he needs to get his people in to direct the changes on a detail level. If he wants to continue whatever policies were left in place by Obama (which in many/most cases he probably would), there’s not much urgency. But if he’s eager to change things, he needs political appointees in place.
There’s double-uncertainty now, because his budget blueprint is looking for big cuts and redirections, but without much detail available. This leaves deputy heads with a great deal of uncertainty past the end-of-April government shutdown date - what will they be allowed to spend or do? So they are not making commitments past that time.
There’s enough lag in planning, to budgeting/contracting, to actually doing, that it would take more months for the lack of direction to trickle down to actual loss of government services. And that will be a product of the leadership gap with the (currently ongoing) budget discussions.
I believe there are some tasks that can only be done by someone confirmed by the Senate. But then again I have no cite.
In service of what…?
To “shrink government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub.”
Yeah, I get it.
In service of what?..
A balance of power between government and corporations and the regulatory environment.
Any decrease in government and regulations leads to a gain in power of the corporations.