New Mods

Some of you may have noticed that we have two new members of the Mod Team! Apparently, there are still people out there who think that moderating a political subreddit is a good idea. So please join us in welcoming /u/LimblessWonder and /u/TinCanBanana. I'll let them properly introduce themselves in the comments.

We'd like to thank all the applicants we received this year. Rest assured we will be keeping many of you in mind when the next call for new Mods goes out.

Paywalled Articles

We're making a small revision to Law 2 that we're hoping will not affect many of you. Going forward, we are explicitly banning Link Posts to paywalled articles. This is a community that aims to foster constructive political discussion. Locking participation behind a paywall does not help achieve this goal.

Exceptions will be made if a Starter Comment contains a non-paywalled, archived version of the article in question. Violations will also not be met with any form of punishment other than the removal of the post. We understand that some sites may temporarily allow article access, or grant users a certain number of "free" articles per month. We're not looking for this kind of confusion to cause any more of a chilling effect on community participation.

Law 5 Exceptions

Over the past few months, we have been granting limited exceptions to content that was previously banned under Law 5. This is a trend we plan on continuing. Content may be granted an exception at Moderator discretion if the following criteria are true:

• The federal government has taken a major action (SCOTUS case, Executive Order, Congressional legislation, etc.) around the banned content.
• Before posting, the user requests an exception from the Mod Team via Mod Mail or Discord.
• The submitted Link Post is to the primary government source for that major federal action.

300,000 Members

We have officially surpassed 300,000 members within the /r/ModeratePolitics community. This milestone has coincided with an explosion of participation over the past few weeks. To put this in perspective, daily pageviews doubled overnight on January 20th and have maintained that level of interaction ever since. We ask for your patience as we adjust to these increased levels of activity and welcome any suggestions you may have.

Transparency Report

Anti-Evil Operations have acted 36 times in January.

The Constitution sets up Congress as the dominant political machine in American government. They make the laws, and the President executes those laws. In fact, it is an unconstitutional exercise for the President to exceed the authority provided to him by Congress. For example, only Congress can issue a declaration of war. The President then acts as Commander in Chief to prosecute said war. While in the modern context, this is a slight simplification, the concept, at its core, is sound.

One of the many enumerated powers, given specifically and only to Congress, is the power to spend taxpayer money. Often referred to as the “power of the purse,” it is Congress that votes on the national budget, increases the debt cieling, and makes financial decisions with how to use taxpayer money to, in theory, provide services to American citizens. This often takes the form of funding agencies that operate to provide protection to American citizens.

When Congress passes a law to create an agency, it effectively delegates the operation of that agency to the President. This is referred to as an enabling statute. A relevant example of an enabling statute is Federal Aviation Act, which, in turn, created the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA is funded by a line item of the National Budget, causing the FAA to revive its operating budget, annually, by an act of Congress. The President, as the executive, is charged with appointing and overseeing that agency further creation and enforcement of rules within the boundaries created by the enabling statute. Similarly, Congress has oversight through the process of advice and consent (eg confirmation hearings) to permit and accept the leaders of these agencies.

Recent events demonstrate how important this balance of Congressional funding and Presidential oversight can be.

If Congress decides how the money is spent, which imposes limits on Presidential power because if the President does something Congress doesn’t like, Congress can refuse to provide access to the Country’s financial resources to stop those unwanted Presidential actions. Alternatively, the President can only spend tax dollars the way Congress directs. This operates as a limitation, or check, on Presidential power.

The Treasury Department, created by an enabling statute on September 2, 1789, is another agency created by Congress vesting the power to distribute taxpayer funds as directed by Congress. It literally operates as the “checkbook” of the United States.

DOGE is a service not created or funded by an act of Congress like the FAA or Treasury. Rather, it was created by the 47th President by executive order (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/). Interestingly, it supplants another project created by President Obama in 2014, the US Digital Service (https://www.usds.gov/mission), and essentially redirects the resources from the existing service to what is known as DOGE. This means DOGE actually exists as art of the Office of Management and Budget (https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/omb/ (note the current website for whitehouse.gov does not have a dedicated page for OMB)), which falls entirely within the Executive Office under the control of the President. This means the President sets its budget and determines what it does without any oversight from Congress.

So, DOGE exists in a limited space under the sole direct control of the President outside the oversight of Congress, operating within an agency that receives funds solely for the purpose of operating the Executive Office. Congress has no say over its leadership.

In theory, as part of OMB, DOGE should do little more than right reports and make recommendations. US Digital Services effectively created the websites for all of the other agencies that interface with the public, like healthcare.gov and ssa.gov.

Now, it seems, that DOGE has been given control of the Treasury Department and is unilaterally making decisions as to how tax money is spent regardless of the direction of Congress.

An elected President has created an office that employs an unelected citizen who is now making decisions about taxpayer dollars earmarked by Congress should or should not be spent.

The President just gave Musk the Checkbook for the United States. Musk is refusing to spend budgeted funds the way Congress decided. This is Presidential overreach on a scale beyond any measure of reasonableness. This is, fundamentally, the taking and usurping of Congressionally enumerated power by the President who is allowing an unelected official to decide how to spend your tax dollars.

This is the essence of a Constitutional crisis and Congress must put a stop to it. Alternatively, this analysis also could form the basis of a legal challenge by any entity to whom Musk decides to not pay, including Lutheran Charities and USAID.