HR 1349: Including Overlooked Constitutional Powers Amendment (Failed)

[Lumine]

Currently under the Constitution, Congress cannot create, modify, or eliminate executive departments, including those already created by Congress in the past; only the president can. This amendment will fix this problem by also giving Congress to ability to create executive departments with officials appointed by the President.

It is a problem, though? Cabinet departments are part of the Executive Power and at the discretion of the President, allowing for a centralized yet efficient system in which, as far as I know, there really hasn't been much (if any) need for Congress to meddle in. I should further note giving such wide powers to Congress when it comes to the Presidency would mean that Congress would be able to terminate existing executive departments (and indrectly fire a cabinet officer) against the will of the President, which is just asking for Constitutional trouble along the line.

I suppose it is kind of strange considering my favorable view towards several instances of reform, but this does seem rather unnecesary at a first glance. Why would it be a problem for Congress not to have such powers?

[Lumine]

From a gameplay point of view it is not a set of powers that would be advisable to turn over to Congress, particularly when it could negate Executive initiative and the particular cabinet plans of every President.

It is far more preferable for a President to set his own executive departments depending on the context, interest and relative activity than to have Congress handling the process, particularly because the level of autonomy we presently have (which allows a President to efficiently remake a Cabinet if he so desires it) is replaced with what promises to be an unnecessarily long process in the House and Senate to reform/eliminate/consolidate and so on offices created by Congress. And as I pointed out before, allowing Congress to terminate Cabinet officers by eliminating their departments is just asking for trouble along the line.

At the risk of sounding excessively critical, I'm also skeptical on whether Congress would make effective use of those powers as well given the carelessness we've seen on several legislative attempts lately, including the creation of offices that remained empty for six months (such as the Debate Moderator office).