IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
Podcast: Seeking approval in Utah


IVN is joined by Nate Allen, founder and Executive Director of Utah Approves, to discuss Approval Voting and his perspective on changing the incentives of our elections.
National Park Service budget cuts are reshaping America’s public lands through underfunding and neglect. Explore how declining park staffing, deferred maintenance, and political inaction threaten national parks, local economies, and public trust in government.
This summer, before dawn, the Liu family from Buffalo will load up their SUV, coffee in hand, bound for a long-planned trip out west. The Grand Canyon has been on their list for years, something to do before the kids get too old and schedules get too tight. They expect crowds. They expect long lines at the entrance. That is part of the deal. In recent years, national parks have drawn more than 325 million visits annually, near record highs.
What they do not expect are shuttered visitor centers and closed trails, not because of weather but because there are not enough staff to maintain them. What they do not see is the budget decision in Washington that made those trade-offs, quietly, indirectly, and without much debate.
The cuts to the National Park Service may look like another line item in a sprawling federal budget. They reveal something deeper about how the country is now governed. Increasingly, public institutions are not dismantled outright. They are allowed to thin out, with fewer resources, less capacity, and lower expectations, until decline begins to feel normal.
This is governing by neglect. Rather than make explicit arguments against shared national resources like our national parks, policymakers sidestep the fight. Congress fails to provide clear direction or sustained investment, and the executive branch makes discretionary decisions about what gets funded, delayed, or scaled back. The result is not a dramatic shift but a steady erosion that shifts costs onto families, especially middle-class and lower-income households, weakens public trust, and leaves institutions with less capacity than they once had.
The erosion of the National Park Service is not the result of a single vote. It often unfolds through quieter mechanisms: continuing resolutions, vague appropriations, and the absence of sustained congressional direction. Instead of passing detailed budgets that specify how funds should be used, Congress relies on stopgap measures that keep funding levels nominally stable while leaving key decisions unresolved. Over the past decade, Congress has passed continuing resolutions in most fiscal years, normalizing short-term budgeting.
That ambiguity matters. When funding lacks specificity, the executive branch gains discretion over how resources are used in practice. Agencies can delay hiring, defer maintenance, or scale back services without formally announcing a cut. The public experiences the consequences, but the policy choice is obscured. The result is a system that rewards inaction. Visible cuts carry political risk; slow decline does not.
In this environment, neglect becomes a governing strategy. It avoids backlash that would come with openly targeting popular institutions like national parks. No one campaigns on closing trails or reducing ranger presence. Yet underfunding produces similar outcomes over time, with fewer services, reduced access, and a gradual decline in quality that is easy to attribute to circumstance rather than policy.
The result is a shift in how these shared resources are managed. Instead of clear legislative priorities backed by stable funding, institutions absorb uncertainty. As that uncertainty compounds, even well-functioning systems begin to look strained or inefficient, conditions that can then be used to justify further retrenchment.
Neglect has one decisive advantage: it is hard to see and even harder to assign blame. Closing a park outright would provoke immediate backlash. Letting it deteriorate, with fewer rangers, longer lines, and reduced hours, rarely does. The experience worsens, but the cause is diffuse.
For lawmakers, this ambiguity is useful. There is no single vote to point to, no clear moment when access was reduced. Funding levels can be defended as stable, even as real capacity declines. Responsibility is spread across committees, agencies, and fiscal cycles, allowing elected officials to claim credit for keeping parks open while avoiding accountability for their gradual erosion.
For the executive branch, discretion fills the gap. When Congress provides limited guidance, agencies make trade-offs behind the scenes, deciding what to staff, what to defer, and what to close temporarily. These choices are framed as operational necessity rather than policy, which further obscures their political origins.
The strain is already visible. The National Park Service has lost roughly 15 to 20 percent of its workforce over the past decade, even as annual visits exceed 325 million. Deferred maintenance has grown past $20 billion. Fewer staff are managing more visitors across an aging infrastructure. The effects show up in everyday ways: shorter hours, closed trails, and parks pushed beyond their limits.
In practice, this approach has become a governing strategy for many Republicans: reducing the size and scope of government without openly cutting programs that remain broadly popular. This pattern is visible in repeated budget proposals that reduce funding for agencies like the National Park Service while avoiding direct votes to eliminate services, allowing capacity to shrink without a clear moment of accountability. Rather than vote to end programs outright, policymakers allow funding and capacity to erode, producing similar outcomes with far less political cost. Institutions are not dismantled; they are allowed to fade, one budget cycle at a time. As the Talking Heads song “Nothing But Flowers” suggests, the hope is that as things fall apart, no one pays attention.
It is easy to see these changes as a problem for vacationers. But the effects reach much further. National parks are not just destinations; they are part of a broader public infrastructure that supports local economies, preserves national heritage, and reflects a shared commitment to collective investment.
Gateway communities depend on park traffic for jobs and revenue. National parks generate tens of billions of dollars annually in visitor spending and support hundreds of thousands of jobs in surrounding regions. When services are reduced, and visitor experiences decline, those local economies feel it quickly, in fewer bookings, shorter stays, and lost income for small businesses. What looks like a budget decision in Washington becomes a pay cut in towns that rely on seasonal tourism.
There is also a quieter loss. National parks are one of the clearest examples of what government can do well: protect common resources, make them accessible, and sustain them over time. When that capacity erodes, public expectations change. Surveys consistently show national parks among the most trusted federal programs, which makes visible strain especially consequential. If even the park system feels unreliable, it reinforces the idea that the government cannot manage complex responsibilities effectively.
That shift matters. As confidence declines, calls for further cuts become easier to make, not because the public has rejected these shared resources, but because weakened performance makes them seem less worth preserving. Underinvestment becomes its own justification, extending far beyond the parks themselves.
When the Liu family arrives at the Grand Canyon, the view will still be there. The scale, the silence, the sense of something enduring. Those do not easily diminish. But the experience around it may feel different. Fewer rangers to guide them, longer waits, and parts of the park just a little less accessible than they should be.
That difference is easy to overlook. It does not announce itself as a policy failure or a political choice. It feels like an inconvenience, like bad timing, like the cost of popularity. But it is something else: the visible edge of a deeper shift in how the country governs its shared resources.
Governing by neglect does not require dramatic decisions. It works slowly, through underinvestment and ambiguity, until decline begins to feel normal. The danger is not only what is lost in places like the national parks. It is what that loss teaches us to accept.
If even the most widely supported institutions can thin out without clear debate or accountability, the same pattern can extend elsewhere. What begins in the parks does not stay there. It becomes a model for how public life is managed, quietly and incrementally, with fewer expectations of what government should provide.
The question is not whether Americans value their national parks. They do. The question is whether the political system still has the capacity, or the will, to sustain them.
Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.

In the Rumble in the Jungle, George Foreman came in expecting to end the fight early.
At first, it looked that way. He was stronger, faster, and landing clean punches. I watched the 1974 championship on simulcast fifty-two years ago and remember how dominant he was in the opening rounds.
By the fifth round, that confidence had faded. Foreman was still throwing, but he was no longer setting the terms.
He had no plan for what followed.
That same problem shows up in U.S. foreign policy, in how wars are fought, authorized, and carried forward.
The United States has repeatedly used force without sustained congressional approval, a tension at the center of the long-running war powers debate.
Under the War Powers Resolution, the president must seek authorization within 60 days of entering hostilities or end the use of U.S. forces. In practice, presidents have stretched or sidestepped those limits, leaving conflicts in a gray area between action and consent.
That pattern matters because it shapes what gets planned and what does not.
Call it the puncher’s illusion.
The United States does not misjudge its ability to strike. The gap is elsewhere. Early success is treated as the measure of success, even though the harder work begins after.
Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya all opened with decisive force. In each case, the outcome was determined later, under conditions that had not been fully worked through in advance. The same dynamic was visible in Vietnam, where early escalation gave way to a prolonged conflict shaped by political limits and endurance rather than battlefield advantage.
U.S. forces entered Baghdad with overwhelming military success. Within days, the Baghdad museum was looted, despite warnings that it would be vulnerable. At the same time, decisions by the Coalition Authority dismantled the army and key governing structures. Those moves removed the systems that kept order without replacing them.
The result was not just instability, but the breakdown of the basic framework that allows a society to function.
Nothing about that reflects a lack of battlefield capability. It reflects how the mission was defined.
The objective was to remove a regime. There was no equally clear plan for what would exist the next day. Once the opening phase ends, outcomes depend on factors outside the initial strike, including political limits, institutional capacity, economic pressure, and the resilience of the society under stress.
Those factors shape the result, yet they receive less attention at the front end.
This is where the illusion becomes clear.
American strategy is built to win the first round. It is less prepared for the later rounds.
This is not about one administration. Experienced teams and deep expertise have been present in past conflicts. The pattern still shows up.
Responsibility for what comes next is divided across the system, and no one owns the outcome.
Military operations are tightly scoped and owned. What follows—containment, escalation management, sanctions, maritime security, and diplomatic endgames—spans multiple agencies and often lacks a single point of accountability.
Political incentives reinforce that split. Early action is visible and decisive. The longer phase is slower, harder to measure, and easier to defer. Political support follows the same path. It peaks at the start but fades as the stakes become more complex.
What would it take to plan for the later rounds?
The gap is not a lack of capability. It is a lack of ownership.
If the outcome matters as much as the strike, responsibility for what follows has to be defined with the same clarity as the operation itself. That means assigning a single accountable lead for the post-strike phase, not dispersing it across agencies with overlapping roles and partial authority.
It also means requiring a credible plan for what comes next before authorizing force. The War Powers debate focuses on whether to act. It rarely addresses who is responsible for what follows once action begins. Without congressional authorization, that scrutiny is weaker. Decisions can narrow to a smaller set of voices, and planning for the next phase receives less challenge and less refinement, a pattern reflected in Iraq reconstruction reviews.
Finally, incentives need to shift. Success is measured at the moment of action because that is where attention and authority are concentrated. If outcomes matter, authority and resources have to extend into the phase that determines them.
Until those changes are made, the system will continue to produce the same result: clarity at the start, and diffusion when it matters most. Early action is visible and decisive. The longer phase is slower, harder to measure, and easier to defer.
Attention follows the same path. It peaks at the start and fades as the stakes become more complex.
Foreman did not lose because he lacked power. He lost because he spent it without a plan for the rounds that ultimately mattered.
The United States has built a system that is effective at dismantling structures of power.
It has been less disciplined about shaping what follows.
Until that changes, the opening strike will continue to define success, even though outcomes are decided later, in the phase that receives the least planning, ownership, and sustained attention.
Edward Saltzberg is the Executive Director of the Security and Sustainability Forum and writes The Stability Brief.
My housing has been conditional on circumstances beyond my control, and the time is up; the owner is selling.
Securing affordable housing is a stressor for much of the working class. According to recent data, nearly 50% of renters are cost-burdened, meaning they spend over 30% of their take-home income on housing costs. Rental prices in California are especially high, 35% higher than the national average. Renting is routinely insecure. The lords of land need to renovate, their kids need to move in. They need to sell.
For many of us, particularly in California, buying is not possible. In the Bay Area, one needs to make $400,000 per year to afford a typical home. Nationally, less than one percent of us make $500,000; in the Bay Area, 2 percent of us do. Thus, for most of us, the housing market is cost-prohibitive. Great credit doesn't translate to enough purchasing power. We need higher incomes, intergenerational wealth, or some other revenue stream.
We need multi-millionaires and billionaires, especially those in the top 1% or those with 8 million or more, to step in. We need housing benefactors.
As a sociologist, I know that stable housing is a key social determinant of health and also that who has a secure and affordable home is shaped by power and policy. Historically, many of us have endured the housing struggle. But it doesn't have to be this way. There could be an abundance of housing for all of us.
After all, we are a nation rich in millionaires (at least 23.8 million) and billionaires. Our economy is anchored to the ultrawealthy, and the gap between them and the rest of us is enormous and growing. And, the wealthy, and the wealth of the wealthy, are increasing. Perhaps the ultrarich could be convinced to support our collective wellbeing by taking action to alleviate the housing crisis?
To be sure, our economy does not value the religious, ethical, and moral notions of “caring.” It values bottom lines, competition, and survival of the “fittest.” We are a country that has lacked the political will to sustain affordable housing, that has allowed tax breaks for the wealthy, and that has allowed wealth to accumulate in disproportionate and unsustainable ways. There are those among us who believe that the housing crisis “is what it is.” We “have nots” should have chosen more lucrative career paths. However, this narrative justifies unhealthy behavior. Inequality is harmful to society across a range of measures. Stable housing plays a meaningful role, not only for individual wellbeing, but also for a sustainable society and world.
If you believe people deserve affordable housing and you have the financial resources to be this type of change agent, please understand that there are many ways to show up as a housing benefactor. There are many ways to do so. 1) Buy properties and rent them at a rate that is less than 30% of our monthly income. 2) Buy properties and sell them to us at a price that works within our budget. 3) Buy properties and agree to 100-year private mortgages. When the federal government floated the 50-year mortgage, it read as ludicrous. But it is better than no option. 4) Subsidize our housing. In this market, an extra thousand dollars a month, or $12,000 a year, can be the difference between an additional room. 4) Develop an app to connect caring multi-millionaires and billionaires to those who lack affordable and secure housing. 5) Create your own solution, perhaps a housing foundation that donates to areas where affordable housing is scarce?
If our government won’t do the work to create an economy where we can all thrive, it is to each other we must appeal. Financial elite, I implore you to make caring cool. Put secure and affordable housing within our reach. Can you act now? We need a place.
Megan Thiele Strong is a Sociology professor at San José State University, a Public Voices Fellow at The OpEd Project, and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.

This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.
Since the beginning of the current Trump Administration, immigration enforcement has undergone transformative change and become one of the most contested issues in the federal government. On his first day in office, President Trump issued Executive Order 14159, which directs executive agencies to implement stricter immigration enforcement practices. In order to implement these practices, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), a budget reconciliation package that paired state and local tax cuts with immigration funding. This allocated $170.7 billion in immigration-related funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spend by 2029.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal law enforcement agency within DHS, received approximately $75 billion of the allocated $170.7 billion. This additional funding from the OBBBA paved the way for increased ICE enforcement and detention in the United States, which has led to controversy.
When passing the OBBBA, Congress used a special legislative procedure called the budget reconciliation process, which was established through the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (CBA). The CBA created the House and Senate Budget Committees, which hold responsibility for drafting an annual budget resolution. This resolution is a non-binding agreement that acts as a blueprint for federal spending, but does not become law or require the President’s signature. The CBA also established procedures that govern the congressional budget process.
The budget reconciliation process is an example of one of these procedures. It allows Congress to fast-track legislation that modifies existing law related to spending, taxes, or the debt limit, in order to ensure implementation of priorities laid out in the annual budget resolution. Specifically, the budget reconciliation process expedites legislation by only requiring a majority vote in the Senate, therefore avoiding the threat of a filibuster. This procedural advantage proved critical to the passage of the OBBBA, which cleared the Senate on a tiebreaking vote cast by Vice President J.D. Vance.
On a legal basis, the controversies surrounding ICE’s actions under the Trump Administration stem from different interpretations of the United States Constitution. In short, Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to authorize the spending of public money and raise revenue via taxation, known as the power of the purse, while Article II vests executive power in the President of the United States.
While the Constitution precisely lays out these distinct powers, tensions arise when they overlap. Recently, debate has sparked over how the executive branch allocates congressionally appropriated funds within ICE. In this debate, proponents of expanded executive discretion argue that since ICE is an executive agency under the DHS umbrella, the President has broad discretion to allocate funds within ICE. Comparatively, critics of expanded executive discretion argue that because Congress has the power of the purse, they have the authority to shape spending priorities and constrain how executive agencies spend the money allocated to them.
One prominent framework supporting expanded executive discretion is the Unitary Executive Theory, a constitutional law theory holding that the President of the United States possesses broad authority to direct and control the executive branch. Under this view, executive agencies are viewed as extensions of the President’s power rather than as independent actors.
Proponents of this theory argue that once Congress has appropriated funds to an executive agency, the President has the constitutional authority to determine how those funds are allocated. Because the OBBBA appropriated additional funds to the DHS, the Unitary Executive Theory has been used to justify President Trump’s discretion over how those funds are being allocated, a significant portion of which are directed towards expanded ICE enforcement, detention, and removal operations.
A contrasting framework of the United States Constitution rejects expanded executive discretion and emphasizes Article I of the United States Constitution, which gives Congress power of the purse, and establishes separation of powers. This viewpoint claims that executive agencies are not merely extensions of presidential power, but rather, institutions that must be constrained by statute.
Simply put, proponents of this framework argue that even though executive agencies operate within the executive branch, they ultimately exist because Congress creates them through law. Accordingly, proponents contend that because Congress creates these agencies and controls their funding, it should retain the authority to set spending priorities and impose constraints on how appropriated funds are used.
Supporters of executive discretion in funding agencies like ICE often cite Article II of the United States Constitution and the Unitary Executive Theory, which rose to prominence through Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent at the conclusion of the Supreme Court case Morrison v. Olson. Scalia’s interpretation of Article II is that all executive power is vested in the President of the United States. Under this interpretation, the President is authorized to control the funding decisions that executive agencies make within statutory limits.
While Congress has the power of the purse, this position argues that an executive agency should not be obligated to balance its spending choices with what Congress desires, as the money has already been congressionally appropriated to it. Supporters of this view justify President Trump’s decision to expand ICE enforcement and detention priorities, interpreting that under Article II, the President has the power to allocate funds in an agency within statutory bounds.
In addition to the Unitary Executive Theory, individuals against limiting executive discretion and ICE’s power argue that the Supremacy Clause, which establishes federal law as the supreme law of the land, is a constitutional justification for the expansion of ICE enforcement and detention. This interpretation of the constitution challenges attempts from local and state governments to remove ICE agents from their jurisdiction. Supporters of ICE saw a legal win on February 2, 2026, when US district judge Katherine Menendez declined to halt Operation Metro Surge over a lawsuit filed by Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis against the DHS. In her ruling, Menendez indicated that Minnesota had not demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of proving a Tenth Amendment violation, and that halting ICE operations would prevent the Federal Government from carrying out constitutionally authorized duties.
On a moral level, individuals in favor of expanded ICE operations argue that increased enforcement directly improves national security and public safety. The DHS released information claiming that over the first six weeks of Operation Metro Surge, federal law enforcement arrested 3,000 criminal illegal aliens. The DHS further claims that this number includes, “vicious murderers, rapists, child pedophiles, and incredibly dangerous individuals,” therefore greatly benefiting public safety.
While opponents of expanded ICE enforcement and detention frequently cite the deaths of Alex Preti and Renee Good as examples of the drawbacks of expanded ICE power, The Heritage Foundation refutes this point. Heritage claims Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey are to blame for these deaths due to their encouragement of anti-ICE protests and refusal to cooperate with DHS law enforcement. Heritage recommends that in order to improve public safety and maximize the effectiveness of ICE’s expanded operations, there should be an increase in workplace enforcement and targeted, unpredictable arrests.
Proponents of limiting executive discretion believe that the Unitary Executive Theory is a misinterpretation of the United States Constitution. One core argument is that while executive agencies serve presidential functions, they also do both quasi-legislative tasks, such as implementing policies and regulations that carry the force of the law, and quasi-judicial functions, including settling disputes within their agency. For these reasons, critics of the Unitary Executive Theory believe that Congress has the authority to protect executive agencies from political control.
The landmark Supreme Court case Humphrey’s Executor v. The United States reinforces this view. This case holds that when an agency performs both quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions, Congress may limit the President’s authority to remove its officials, therefore directly preserving an executive agency’s institutional independence from political control.
Furthermore, critics claim that the Unitary Executive Theory reduces checks on the executive branch and weakens institutional independence, ultimately increasing the concentration of executive power. Because ICE performs functions that involve both rule implementation and case adjudication, critics argue that Congress should have imposed clearer statutory constraints on how the additional $75 billion in funding is directed and used. Instead, the OBBBA grants the executive branch broad discretion over resource allocation within the agency, raising constitutional concerns about whether Congress has adequately exercised its power of the purse or has effectively surrendered its spending authority to the President.
Proponents of limiting executive discretion often point to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as a major check on executive power. Passed in 1946, the APA governs how federal agencies create and enforce regulations, meaning executive actions must comply with its requirements. The 2024 Supreme Court case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo strengthened these limits by overturning the Chevron Doctrine and requiring courts, rather than agencies, to independently interpret ambiguous laws. This ruling is especially relevant to recent lawsuits challenging expanded ICE enforcement under Operation Metro Surge, as courts are now more likely to independently assess whether ICE’s actions exceed the authority granted by Congress, rather than referring back to the agency itself.
Critics of expanded ICE powers also raise significant due process, civil liberties, and economic concerns about the scale and scope of ICE operations. Of individuals booked into ICE custody in Fiscal Year 2025, only 5 percent had violent convictions, and 73 percent had no criminal convictions at all. With the White House targeting 3,000 arrests per day, opponents argue this enforcement goal will inevitably sweep up non-criminals, raising concerns that detention is being used as a tool of mass enforcement without regard to individual circumstances or public safety risk.
Under the current Trump administration, expanded ICE enforcement and detention operations have become a central issue, raising both moral and legal concerns. Proponents of executive discretion ground their legal claims in Unitary Executive Theory, stating that the President has broad authority to allocate funds within executive agencies. Supporters of ICE’s expanded operations argue that heightened immigration enforcement and detention significantly improve public safety. Conversely, proponents of limiting executive discretion ground their legal claims in Article I of the United States Constitution and Supreme Court precedents that limit executive power in allocating the specific use of funds within executive agencies like ICE. Critics of ICE’s expanded operations argue that they neglect due process and basic human rights.
Looking forward, these competing constitutional and moral arguments will continue to shape immigration enforcement, the broader landscape of United States governance, and ongoing debates over the correct balance of power between Congress and the executive branch.
Q: Who has the authority to spend the funding allocated to ICE and other executive agencies, Congress or the President?
A: Different interpretations of the constitution lead to different answers to this question. While some may believe that Article II of the United States constitution vests all executive power in the President of the United States, this view conflicts with the Power of the Purse given to Congress in Article I.
Q: Is the expansion of ICE enforcement legally justified under the Constitution?
A: There is no single agreed upon answer to this question. Arguments in favor of ICE expansion include the Unitary Executive Theory and the Supremacy Clause. In comparison, arguments against expanded ICE operations cite the APA, Impoundment Control Act, Supreme Court Precedents (Humphreys Executor v. The United States) and recent judicial cases, such as Loper Bright v Raimando — all of which look to limit concentrated executive power and place checks on the executive branch.
Q: Why is the expansion of ICE operations controversial on a moral level?
A: Arguments in favor of expanded ICE operations cite an increase in public safety. Arguments against ICE expansion cite the lack of overall immigration reform, as well as the neglecting of due process and civil liberties for individuals targeted by ICE.
Ronan Kiter is an ACE fellow.
The Power of the Purse and Executive Discretion: ICE Expansion Under the Trump Administration was first published by ACE and republished with permission
Some MAGA loyalists have turned on Trump. Why the rest haven’t