Gee. What a radical, authoritarian concept.
“The decision could result in job losses for tens of thousands of employees at agencies including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, State and Treasury,” whines the New York Times. Awwww! That’s completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. That the Times, or some judges, or Democrats, or anyone else doesn’t like the effort to strip down and re-organize the bloated, corrupt, inefficient and profligate Federal government is their opinion and they are welcome to it. But it is the Executive Branch, and the various efforts to block the President from managing his own branch was unethical, an abuse of power, and indefensible.
The decision was preceded by a major ruling on June 27, when SCOTUS limited the ability of judges to block President Trump’s policies nationwide. This should not be treated as a partisan decision, but of course the Left wants it to be seen as so. This, again, demonstrates a death of integrity.
The emergency application on mass firings across federal agencies began with an executive order signed by Trump in February directing officials to prepare for major cuts to the federal work force. Then labor unions, advocacy groups and local governments sued to block it, counting on partisan judges to see it as their duty to block an Evil President. So Judge Susan Illston of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California temporarily paused the administration’s plans for layoffs and program closures, claiming that such cuts were most likely illegal without approval from Congress. There is no legal authority for that contention. She said a President cannot conduct large-scale reorganization of the executive branch without cooperation with Congress and following the process that the legislative branch has approved for government reorganization, and she froze mass layoffs and agency closures while the lower-court case proceeded.
The fact that past Presidents have chosen to seek cooperation from Congress in organization of the Executive Branch, often for political cover, never meant that they had to. Nonetheless, Judge Illston wrote that in order to make “large-scale overhauls of federal agencies, any president must enlist the help of his coequal branch and partner, the Congress.”
Balderdash.
The Trump administration appealed the ruling, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Judge Illston’s order. The Trump administration then filed an emergency application with the Supremes. Judges defying the Constitution to advance partisan warfare is an emergency. It’s called the Executive Branch for a reason.
Ethics Alarms 
I find it frustrating that the NYT only linked to a searchable list of filed documents, and not to the decision (unless I missed it!). It’s here.
Jackson’s voluminous dissent seems unprofessional in tone and makes some questionable assertions. Still reading it though. It seems to treat a request for plans from agency heads for potential restructuring the same as actually engaging in wholesale restructuring.
I was under the impression that the Executive Branch develops a budget and Congress authorizes and appropriates the funds requested in that budget. That does not mean that every dime must be spent it simply means that money allocated to one thing cannot be spent on another without approval.
Restructuring government is not changing where money that has been appropriated it just lowers the total amount spent. That should be welcomed by Congress.
I would like to remind the whiners that power to the people means that they should take action to make their own lives better. Reducing reliance on government actually returns the decision making power to the people.