Trump let ‘the swamp’ get much bigger

PRESIDENTIAL candidate Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp!” The “swamp” is the permanent Washington bureaucracy working to perpetuate itself.

In 2020, then-president Trump said he was succeeding: “We’re draining the Washington swamp!” But it’s not true.

“He made government

economist Ed Stringham said in my new video. “That’s going in the wrong direction. Looking through a list of agencies, every single one I could see, there were more employees after his presidency than before.”

Trump added almost 2 million jobs to the federal workforce. He did make some cuts at the State Department, Labor Department, Education Department and his own office.

But spending under Trump nearly doubled. Some was in response to COVID, but billions came before.

That spending increased the size of the swamp. New programs filled Washington with more bureaucrats.

Trump launched a $6 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program to bring food from farmers to families. “Last I checked,” Stringham joked, “we have an industry for that. It’s called the supermarket industry.”

Trump pandered to women, signing a Women, Peace and Security Act, the Woman Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Act, the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, a Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative. … That just made the swamp bigger. Permanently.

“Once government implements a program,” Stringham said, “it becomes very difficult to roll that back. You’ve created a whole new constituency of lobbyists who love their new income.”

Seventy years ago, Congress feared America wouldn’t have enough mohair for soldiers’ uniforms. So they subsidized mohair production. Today, the military doesn’t use mohair. But the subsidy continues.

At least Trump acknowledges his failure to drain the swamp. “When I said it, it sounded very easy and it was going to happen real fast,” he said. “I didn’t know the swamp was this dirty and this deep.” Elect me again, he promises, and “we will drain the swamp once and for all.” I doubt it.

Instead of hiring more bureaucrats, Trump could have turned to the private sector.

“Privatize!” Stringham exclaimed. “Government doesn’t need to be doing all these things. We have markets.”

Markets work better. They even create things people assume can be done only by government. When I ask people, “Who built NYC’S subways?” everyone answers, “Government.” But it’s not true. Private companies built most of them.

Politicians then forbade the entrepreneurs to raise prices from a nickel to a dime, driving them out of business. The city took over the subways and … raised the price much more.

Private enterprise is simply more efficient. America doesn’t need the Labor, Agriculture and Commerce departments. Those things just happen. They work better if government gets out of the way. Trump didn’t privatize any department.

“He did do some deregulation,” I said to Stringham.

“Government spending increased dramatically,” Stringham replied. “I don’t see that as draining the swamp. I see that as making the swamp a lot bigger.”

There’s only one way to drain it, he added: “Don’t have the government in control of so many things.”