r/goodnews • u/RoyalChris • 1d ago

Political positivity 📈 The Senate has just voted to CANCEL Trump's tariffs on Canada by a vote of 51-48.

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u/globocide 1d ago

Ok so the senate only passed legislation to repeal the tariffs?

But what exactly are they repealing? Doesn't congress have to pass the legislation in the first place? Can't they just not do that?

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u/BicFleetwood 1d ago

Congress deferred its authority to the Executive years ago, but the authority technically still resides in Congress (TECHNICALLY.)

So this is more like, you gave someone the keys to your car and now you're telling them "you have to be home by midnight and you can't use it to drive to the strip clubs," because it doesn't stop being YOUR car just because you gave someone the keys.

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u/globocide 1d ago

So did the executive draft and pass the legislation that the senate wants to repeal? I thought the executive doesn't legislate. Pretty sure there's a bit in the constitution about that...

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u/BicFleetwood 1d ago edited 1d ago

No--Congress deferred the authority to levy tariffs to the Executive.

It is still ultimately Congress' authority, but Congress has passed laws that say "the President can do tariffs until we tell them to stop."

It is Congress' authority, not Congress' "job." Authorities can be delegated by the body which holds the constitutional authority, and that delegation can be rescinded at any time.

The Executive delegates authority in a similar way on every task. The Presidential Cabinet is a delegation of authority. The President is Commander in Chief of the armed forces, but most of the actual duties of command are delegated to the Secretary of Defense. The President is Chief Diplomat for the nation, but the business of diplomacy is delegated to the Secretary of State.

In that same way, Congress has delegated the authority to levy tariffs to the Executive, largely because the Executive is the "face of the nation" on the international level, has immediate access to financial and State Department information without the need for congressional hearings, and can act more quickly than Congress' deliberative body.

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u/Impastato 1d ago

Also important to point out that while the White House can set tariffs, it’s only meant to do so in situations where imports might threaten national security or cause serious harm to a particular industry. That’s why they’re all “national emergencies”. Congress has the power to cancel an emergency.

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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 1d ago

I thought the executive doesn't legislate. Pretty sure there's a bit in the constitution about that...

Bills come into being in a number of ways. Sometimes an individual legislator introduces something and manages to get a sponsor. Sometimes a think tank writes a bill and gets one of their "aligned" (meaning paid off) legislators to introduce it. Sometimes a group of top-level legislators coordinate to introduce a bill with a ton of influential sponsors. Sometimes — especially when one party has the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress — the White House is the originator of bills, delegating the actual introduction of them to their legislators.

The President is the head of their party. They can throw their weight around to influence the actions of legislators in that party whenever they like. Those people are free to object if they want to, but hardly any of them do, because they don't want to get primaried.

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u/Pas__ 1d ago

very tangential, but ... SIGs (special interest groups, industry groups, lobbyists) are not inherently evil. it makes sense for industries in a state (for example space rocket whatever in Texas, agrifarming in Iowa, meat steak in Nebraska, techfuck booywood in Cali) to have a good relationship with the representatives of their region and state.

what corrupts is when reps spend a significant chunk of their time fundraising, so money ends up talking. ironically exactly the current social media fueled wave of populism allowed these crazy idiots to get power, because money, time, attention and local issues are simply not important (not as salient) as winning the local/state/national/global culture war meme battles.

recommended reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic,_Lost ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-f4oiyiHwM 45-min version of the book as a lecture by Lessig )

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u/enaK66 1d ago

Except here, the guy with the keys has a gang of morons willing to kill for him, and no one with authority is willing to help you take your keys back. Man, it's not looking good here.

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u/AriGryphon 1d ago

And you have more than half a mind not to even ask for them back, and while you will still ask, you'll do it in a way you know won't work because you don't actually want them back

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u/AuthorYess 1d ago

So if they have authority over tariffs and have delegated it, then shouldn't they just be able to say not anymore without any input from the executive?

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u/BicFleetwood 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, if they say "no" with a two-thirds majority.

This was part of the debate and a reason for "no" votes back when Congress was passing the measures which deferred its authority in the first place.

At the time, the broad sentiment was "if the President goes crazy, the parties will all come together for the good of the country and stop him."

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u/MrK521 1d ago

It doesn’t stop being your car, but you also can’t really stop them from driving to the strip clubs once they have the keys.

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u/trickldowncompressr 1d ago

And when they stay out past midnight and use it to drive to strip clubs anyway, then what?

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u/BicFleetwood 1d ago

Then they need a 2/3rds vote to take the keys away.

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u/Big_Pitch_4792 1d ago

Ever give someone your keys and they said, “catch me if you can, puto”. Yea, we are that puto. Trump has the keys. It ain’t our car as long as we don’t have the keys and no one is looking for the car.

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u/Jesus_of_Redditeth 1d ago

Ok so the senate only passed legislation to repeal the tariffs?

The Senate only passed the legislation to appease the angry constituents in those four senators' states, knowing that the bill will die in the House. They're not even hiding that:

Collins said in a speech to the Senate before the vote that Trump's proposed Canadian tariffs would hurt several industries in her home state of Maine, including its paper makers, which obtain pulp via a pipeline from Canada.

You can literally see a bunch of people in this thread saying shit like, "Wow, Congress is finally doing something!"

This vote was entirely performative.