From construction to deconstruction
Donald Trump made his name in real estate. Now he is becoming known for pulling apart policy
Reading some of the news coverage this weekend, one might get the impression that Donald Trump’s failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act is a fatal blow to his presidency. That’s hooey.
Healthcare is a siren song that has seduced many presidents since Harry Truman called for a national insurance programme in 1945.
Liberals mock Trump as ineffective at their own peril.
Despite the chaos and the growing credibility gap, Trump is systematically succeeding in his quest to “deconstruct the administrative state”, as his chief strategist Stephen Bannon puts it.
He’s placed devoted ideologues into perches from which they can stop aggressively enforcing laws that conservatives don’t like.
By not filling certain posts, he’s ensuring that certain government functions will simply not be performed.
His budget proposal spotlighted his desire to make as much of the federal bureaucracy as possible wither on the vine.
Trump has been using Executive Orders to tie the hands of rule makers.
He put in place a regulatory freeze during his first hours, mandated that two regulations be repealed for every new one that goes on the books and ordered a top-to-bottom review of the government with an eye toward shrinking it.
Any day now, Trump is expected to sign an executive order aimed at undoing Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan and end a moratorium on federal-land coal mining. This would ensure that the US does not meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement.
The Administration is also preparing new executive orders to re-examine all 14 US free-trade agreements.
Trump plans to unveil a new White House office with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and, potentially, privatise some government functions.
“The Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the President’s son-inlaw and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power centre within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump,” the Washington Post reports.
“Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to . . . create a lasting legacy for a President still searching for signature achievements.”
Kushner’s ambitions are grand: “In some cases, the office could direct that government functions be privatised, or that existing contracts be awarded to new bidders.” The Congressional Review Act had only been used once since it passed in 1996 to get rid of a regulation. Trump has already used it three times since February to kill regulations put into effect by the Obama Administration: He eliminated the Interior Department’s stream protection rule, which barred coal-mining companies from conducting any activities that could permanently pollute streams and other sources of drinking water. He killed an SEC rule requiring oil and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments. And he made it easier for the mentally ill to get guns by blocking the Social Security Administration from turning over certain data to the FBI. Seven more bills to undo Obama regulations have passed both chambers of Congress and will soon be signed by the President. He can’t pass legislation to repeal Obamacare, but Trump is weakening the pillars of the healthcare system from the inside so that he can blame Democrats for future problems. Personnel is policy, and Trump has appointed several people who openly oppose the missions of the agencies they lead. “If you look at these Cabinet nominees, they were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction,” Bannon explained at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Sometimes who you don’t hire is just as important as who you do. Trump recently told Fox News that he will not fill all the vacancies he’s entitled to. He explained that not moving to populate the Cabinet departments is a feature, not a bug, of his Administration. Most importantly of all, Neil Gorsuch is poised to secure a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Bannon said the President has chosen his appointees with the deconstruction of the administrative state in mind. Nowhere is that more obvious than on the high court. Republicans are confident Gorsuch will facilitate a major rollback of the regulatory state over the next 30 to 40 years, which would be a major part of Trump’s legacy as President.