Yes. It's a good start with the Senatorial confirmation, but it's just a start. If Czars are that necessary for the Executive branch, then change the Constitution to include them.

This makes the most sense. The more power that an advisor or officer in the Executive Branch possesses, the more oversite that should be required. However, the ideal thing to do would be to get rid of unconstitutional departments unless congress wants to amend the Constitution to give the federal government such regulatory power.

Feingold is one of the few Congressmen of the liberal left who I would have little hesitation in voting for. I disagree with the man on a great number of issues, but he is morally consistent and ethically clean. He is a differing opion who I have the utmost respect for.

I'm of a similar mind on this. There are very few congressmen or congresswomen in either party that I could say that I admire. Republican Ron Paul gets my respect for his consistency in voting, regardless of which political party is in power, as well as his strong stance in favor of civil liberties. Feingold is also strong on civil liberties, although, his Campaign Finance Reform bill was antithetical to the 1st Amendment. Feingold was also a critic of Bill Clinton was he president.

Hiring and firing employees does not require a Constitutional Amendment. But the creation of power-weiding departments does.

Yes. It's a good start with the Senatorial confirmation, but it's just a start. If Czars are that necessary for the Executive branch, then change the Constitution to include them.

CEOs have an executre board and shareholders. A CEO does not have a built-in checks-and-balances, per se. The mass of the power in our government is meant for the people via Congress. The Executive is there for just that reason, to execute what Congress puts in. The SCOTUS is the referee.

And yes, we should hamstring every executive. He should not act as independently as has become the custom. That pesky Constitution!

So, beyond the partisan bickering here, how do we allow new presidents to have the staff they need WITHIN THE FIRST 100 DAYS? How about it? What would YOU do to improve the situation?

The problem is that the advisers to the President are covered by Executive Privilege. Bush, under the unitary executive theory, expanded the role of the advisers to actually directing the operations of the various executive departments. At the same time he shielded the same people under executive privilege so they did not have to answer to Congress. Bush/Chaney’s most serious expansion of the Executive Privilege was the idea that it shielded his advisers from testifying at all, not just that they didn’t have to testify about advice given directly to the President. They also claimed that the conversations these advisers had with others were as also shielded as if they were discussions with the President.

The president is the Chief Executive and is permitted to delegate his authority as he sees fit. The problem comes in when the advisers go extra legal. Think of Karl Rove and the United States attorney mess, where the DOJ was used for political purposes. The Attorney General, who is answerable to Congress, was bypassed.

Obama could short circuit all of this discussion by renouncing the Bush extensions to executive privilege. However, it is unreasonable to expect the President to give up power voluntarily. The Supreme Court can only respond to litigation coming its way and the Congress is unlikely to go to them since Alitio and Roberts were part of the team that came up the unified executive theory during the Reagan-Bush I years. Congress is going to have to balls up and work to reclaim their lost power. If they want it, which seems, at this point less than a sure bet.

The Constitution is silent on much of this. There is no mention of a cabinet in it. Rather the Executive branch organization was set up by statute. The balances of powers issues, such as executive privilege, were formed through a combination of judicial interpretation, statute and in the W. Bush case, out of thin air.

Yes, we should get rid of them all and don't forget the FBI, NEA, etc, etc…

Sounds like a plan to me…

Care to start a pool on how long the US stays a single country after we get rid of all of the Federal Agencies & Bureaucracies…

I give it five years. Tops.

If it “ain't” in the Constitution, then it shouldn't be part of the government. All tsars must go! (spelled it different that time just for fun).

Good, should we also get rid of the CIA, DEA, NSA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the NIH and the myriad of agencies that have been created since the 1800's, none of them are in the constitution.

I've been saying that “Czars” are unconstitutional since the first Bush, when I saw it come across a video game screen (drug czar) and struck me as odd. 1989 – the year I first started studying politics. Time flies when you're having fun.

If it “ain't” in the Constitution, then it shouldn't be part of the government. All tsars must go! (spelled it different that time just for fun).

I agree with Feingold's decision to call a hearing and agree with most of what he said at the opening of the hearing, though I would be less inclined to give some of these “czars” the benefit of the doubt. The fact that a “czars” has been confirmed by congress really doesn't do much to placate me if the office or department which they are heading is not constitutionally justified in the first place.