This included “a new kind of executive,” Barr recognized. The Framers “created an office that was already the ideal Whig executive. It already had built into it the limitations that Whig doctrine aspired to. It did not have the power to tax and spend; it was constrained by habeas corpus and by due process in enforcing the law against members of the body politic; it was elected for a limited term of office; and it was elected by the nation as whole. That is a remarkable democratic institution – the only figure elected by the nation as a whole.”The Founders conceived of the Senate as the arbiter of sound governance. The states were supposed to be the ultimate check on monarchs. The states lost that power with overbearing executive branch. They ultimately lost it because the Senate fucked up with the Vietnam war.
The Senate can regain its power, but they need confidence, it is still shattered. The founders made this requirement of the Senate permanent, it is really undoable from any of the debates we have had since then, including a civil war. We have to bite the bullet, invest in the small states, make rule with some rationality.
We can no longer deal with the Senate using earmarks, the time has come to pay them up front.
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