By that theory, if the President can choose not to spend money budgeted and authorized by Congress, they have an effective veto power over any legislation. Don't like trains? Defund Amtrak. Don't like highways? Defund DOT. Peace lover? Zero out the DoD.
This is why the Supreme Court is here - to adjudicate what is legal and to reconcile different responsibilities and theories. Regardless of what is "best for the country", the law says one thing and the President is doing something else.
First of all see the "impoundment power" and the Impoundment Control Act. It's not clear what the Constitution says on this matter, nor have the courts pronounced themselves on this. In the 90s the SCOTUS said that Congress could not give the President an explicit line item veto power, but impoundment is not the same thing.
Second, in extremis, it has got to be the case that the President can refuse to spend allocated moneys. The President must never be able to spend unallocated funds, but Congress can't make money appear out of nowhere. In extremis the dollar could stop being the world's reserve currency, and in extremis the U.S. could end up in a situation like Argentina's. Obviously there has to be a limit. I'm not saying we're there. But I am saying that the courts should thing ten times before saying that the President cannot impound spending.
Besides, consider all the constitutional provisions that we no longer adhere to. For example the Constitution says that Congress must set the value of the currency, but Congress does no such thing. For another the Constitution says that all debt issuance must be approved by Congress, but Congress merely sets a ceiling for debt issuance rather than approving each issuance. Some things -not many- the Constitution got wrong in ways that nobody even bothered to amend nor ever will.
In extremis, if it's the President that decides which parts of Congress to implement, then they have broken the separation of powers. Either the Supreme Court should explicitly rule that the President can weigh e.g. macroeconomic impacts when choosing not to implement laws Congress passed, or Congress should act to avoid those economic consequences.
Aside from today's specific issue, I'm very concerned about the decades-long trend of power being ceded by Congress to the Executive and Judicial branches. This is would be another big jerk in that direction.
"Current law thus often catches the executive branch in a vise: Presidents can neither spend money without an appropriation nor refuse to spend funds once Congress has provided them. From both directions, Congress has reinforced its “power of the purse”—its authority to control the use of federal money." - https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/a-primer-on-the-impound...
No, the extreme example here is about DEFICIT spending. If Congress passed a balanced budget then the President could not decide not to spend some of it.
Reality has a stronger vise than the ICA or the SCOTUS.
The question here seems to be whether the president can temporarily not spend money. Congress has the ultimate power of spending. When the spending is grants, does the executive have the ability to change where the money goes? In other words once the tap is open, it can’t ever close?
In period, it was not that snug. This was in an era when you could get a dozen people into town in a 2CV and the majority of adults smoked. People were a lot leaner then, and considerably shorter.
In 1954, in the UK, the average male was 5'7" and 11 stone, 6 lbs, which equates to quite a high BMI of 25 (18.5 - 24.9 is healthy BMI). Nowadays there are very few men in the UK with that weight. Let's ignore women from this because women were second class citizens at the time. Men are on average 2 stone heavier.
But average weight is just average, nowadays with 2/3 of UK adults overweight, there are far more people at the top end of the Bell Curve, at double the average weight people had on the 1950s. So half of today's population would not fit in the seats.
When you look at old European or Japanese cars such as the MINI or old FIATs, bear this in mind. Those cars might not have ever been spacious, but, in period, they were not cramped. Similarly, Concorde was never spacious, but it was not a very snug ride until obesity got the better of us.
I think that there is a reasonable argument that half the population don't fit in today's plane seats. Also, it isn't always weight related. My BMI is low 20s and I'm quite tall. I can't put my legs together, as the seat in front is too close.
I hate flying.
A relative who used Concord a few times didn't comment on the space, but instead said it was the noise during flight that meant he preferred British Airways first class on a normal plane, if time wasn't essential.
Looking at weight is overrated. Unless you're actually massive it usually doesn't matter for space at all.
My BMI is over 25 but yesterday, in a normal train, I could hardly use my large laptop because my arms are long and my shoulders are wide. My ass fit into the seat without any problems. Also surprisingly, legroom was good.
When the Concorde flew, the panels would expand. On the last flight of the one in Seattle, one of the crew stuck their hat in one. When it slowed down, the hat became stuck in the wall. It is still there.
Patrick has mentioned several times lately that he writes for a broad audience, in a way that’s easy for people with influence to share. He didn’t write this essay for HN; it’s incidental that this article is posted here.
There's an amusing symmetry between the lines he quotes that carefully suggest without actually claiming that e.g. the operating company will pay out all its profits in distribution, and the way everything he himself writes suggests without actually claiming.
Not every western country (although every Anglophone country). There's a whole spectrum of costs - e.g. Spain has the lowest costs and fastest delivery of transit projects in the developed world, by a large margin (maybe an order of magnitude?). Alon Levy at https://pedestrianobservations.com covers this in great detail if you're interested.
Why do transit-infrastructure projects in New York cost 20 times more on a per kilometer basis than in Seoul? We investigate this question across hundreds of transit projects from around the world. We have created a database that spans more than 50 countries and totals more than 11,000 km of urban rail built since the late 1990s. We will also examine this question in greater detail by carrying out six in-depth case studies that take a closer look at unique considerations and variables that aren’t easily quantified, like project management, governance, and site conditions.
The goal of this work is to figure out how to deliver more high-capacity transit projects for a fraction of the cost in countries like the United States. Additionally, we hope that our site will be a useful resource for elected officials, planners, researchers, journalists, advocates, and others interested in contextualizing transit-infrastructure costs and fighting for better projects.
If you have ideas and evidence about why transit costs vary so greatly from one country to the next or you just want to connect with us, please get in touch at info[at]transitcosts.com or click on the “Contact Us” tab. We are trying our best to get things right, but we don’t know everything and we will invariably make mistakes. Correct us and expand our understanding of transit-infrastructure planning, construction, and financing. We are always looking for new projects, data, corrections, resources, and feedback.
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