The administrative state will not take President-elect Donald Trump’s reforms lying down, and although his actions as president can severely hamper the deep state, he will need legislative help to fully address the bureaucratic rot in the federal government.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., recently confirmed reports that the Senate would consider two tracks for two so-called reconciliation bills, which, as of Jan. 3, the Republican-majority Senate can pass with fewer than 60 votes. One bill, likely to pass more quickly, will focus on immigration and energy; the other will focus on extending the tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
I’d like to suggest that, in whichever reconciliation bill seems most appropriate to them, House and Senate Republicans consider including reforms to make the administrative state more accountable to the people’s elected president.
These structural reforms to take on the deep state should make it easier to fire bureaucrats who oppose the president’s agenda, saving money and helping to streamline the federal budget.
2 Tracks of Deep State Reform
The incoming second Trump administration is already effectively gearing up to fight waste and abuse in the federal government, using tools that don’t require Congress to pass any new legislation.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have done excellent work in exposing the eye-popping waste and abuse in the federal government. Their Department of Government Efficiency, a presidential advisory commission known as DOGE, is long overdue.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who leads efforts to help DOGE in the Senate, published an important report revealing how your tax dollars are wasted in maintaining federal office space while employees work from home.
The Department of Education shelled out $1 billion in diversity, equity, and inclusion grants since 2021, according to a report on so-called DEI spending from Parents Defending Education.
Trump should be able to reverse much of this damage through executive orders and by elevating effective managers to key positions such as heading the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management.
Even as woke bureaucrats dig in by finalizing rules to “Trump-proof” the bureaucracy, the new administration can issue new rules to reverse these steps. Trump’s executive order creating a new category for federal workers, “Schedule F,” will go a long way toward making the government more accountable.
Trump is preparing to make the important moves that he will have the authority to make after his inauguration Jan. 20. Unfortunately, subduing the deep state will require more than executive orders.
Public Sector Unions
Bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., enjoy benefits that most employees do not. Why? Public sector unions such as the American Federation of Government Employees have organized federal workers and secured perks and job protections that would shock private sector workers.
It is long past time to bring an end to the perverse system of federal government unions. Even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man whose “New Deal” helped establish the modern federal bureaucracy, opposed public employee unions.
“The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations,” Roosevelt wrote. “The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.”
FDR warned that any negotiation with a public employee union would constitute a loss of the people’s authority. Yet a shocking Government Accountability Office report found that federal workers at just one agency—the Department of Veterans Affairs—spent 1 million hours working for unions in 2015.
Republicans and Democrats long agreed that public sector unions weren’t compatible with constitutional government. The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which implemented many positive reforms, also codified President John F. Kennedy’s executive order enabling government workers to join unions. Congress should consider whether it’s time to amend this law.
When federal workers unionize, they set up an adversarial relationship with the people’s elected representatives, who hired these employees to serve the people. These unions then advocate for workers against the people’s elected representatives, shielding the employees from the ultimate accountability that comes at the ballot box.
Union protections help explain why so many bureaucrats felt comfortable openly opposing Trump’s agenda from within the executive branch during his first term. To fully address this deep state phenomenon, the second Trump administration needs systemic reforms to the civil service.
Reining in the Administrative State
Passage of the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act should also be on the docket for the streamlined reconciliation process. Although DOGE can and should identify waste and abuse for the new Trump administration to cut, Congress needs to reassert its authority over the administrative state.
Every year, administrative agencies that Americans have barely even heard of issue far more rules and regulations than Congress passes. This system flies in the face of the vision of the Founders, who gave Congress more power than the other two branches of government because the legislative branch most represents the will of the people.
The REINS Act would require any major regulation that would affect the economy to receive a vote in both houses of Congress. This would be a powerful way to rein in the federal government—and it would do so not just for the four years of the second Trump administration, but for the foreseeable future. It represents an essential step for Congress to make the goals of DOGE far more permanent.
Entirely Unaccountable Agencies
Congress should seriously consider reining in agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In May, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the bizarre funding scheme that aims to keep the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau independent from Congress’ power of the purse. Although many consider the opinion flawed, Congress has the authority to reverse this abuse of power by simply reforming the law.
Without reforms, the CFPB can persist in perpetuity and effectively without congressional oversight. This makes the agency unaccountable to the people. As Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote, this “novel statutory scheme” means that “the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may bankroll its own agenda without any congressional control or oversight.”
As I lay out in my forthcoming book “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” the federal bureaucracy’s power enables a network of far-left activists to infiltrate and advise the government, getting their preferred policies implemented without approval from Congress.
Restraining this behemoth will be critical to combating woke priorities in Washington, D.C.
The incoming Trump-Vance administration is already off to a good start in addressing the rot of the administrative state, but achieving lasting change will require the help of Congress. Returning power to the people’s elected representatives is just as important as reversing the Biden-Harris administration’s war on cheap energy and restoring the southern border.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Tyler O’Neil.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
All good stuff but the title to this article is backwards.
It’s not “Trump Needs Legislative Help” but rather “The Legislature Needs Trump’s Help”.
President Trump and his surrogates (JD Vance and Trump’s cabinet secretaries) need to be arm twisting on Capitol Hill every day if any of the legislation proposed in this article has a chance of being passed.
Hard work, yes; impossible, no.
The Dems, and their minions, are not going to go quietly in the night.
(Especially that POS congressman from Maryland Jamie Raskin and his goons. – He’s already making threats to round up as much support as he can to not certify the election) they are going to be trouble commencing in earnest Jan 6th 2025. Those folks do not take “NO” for an answer. Do not let your guard down and stay vigilant. Be prepared to PUSH BACK HARD.
Semper Vigilans
Probably good third of the legislators are fossils that should have been retired a couple of decades ago. Why are they still there is a mystery to me .They probably are worse than Biden incapable and incapacitated mentally . If the job is so unimportant why are they there, if it is crucial how can they perform,they are barely functional, which is evident every time they open their mouth,like little lamas turning the handle. Of what help can they be to Trump He needs dynamic thinking capable brains not relics doing everything to sabotage him. Put them to the test and see if they pass limited term proposal.
Thank you for this info. Most Americans had NO IDEA this has been what’s going on in DC and our States, too. The age of ‘Unions’ is long overdue to expire, whatwith Amendments to the Constitution that now safeguard the workplace (unless they’re corrupt). We don’t need a corrupt Govt. running away with our $$$ and lining their own pockets with it!
What good is “Congressional oversight” when the bureaucracy never truthfully or timely responds to congress’ questions( a la justice dept., FBI, Mayorkas, etc.). And there is no certain consequence to failure to truthfully testify.
I sent the link for this article to my “Representatives” in the DC Cesspool, Hopefully someone there will read it, but I’m not going to hold my breath for a reply. I am pretty sure I’m on their IGNORE list. I sign all my emails to the DC Cesspool thus: Glen M; An American citizen for a SOVEREIGN USA with ZREO DEBT!!
BUT will Congress Help?? the DC Estd vs MAGA
Let’s get the ball rolling to bring in spending where necessary ! To long we are watching some of the perks going uncheck
Very stirring article. There is no place or excuse for this level of government waste.
No one man can change the system. They managed to get past nomination of the 219th Speaker… so get to work!
He needs not to be assassinated before taking office and needs to be careful!
While probably beneficial (at least not harmful), those reforms are mostly window dressing and will almost certainly be short lived (no longer than the next Dem President/Congress).
We need a complete rework of the whole bureaucratic system. In my opinion, it needs to be more directly accountable to the people through direct elections and/or through State governments. That rules out keeping most of the bureaucracies under the control of the President. One vote every four years for one of two people cannot possibly reflect the so-called “will of the people” when it comes to agencies as diverse as the VA, EPA, FTC, FAA, etc. There is simply no way for our voices to be heard by the bureaucrats under the current system.
We need nationally elected directors (executive) of the largest agencies with State/regionally appointed/elected oversight/rule-making board members (legislative). Many of the agencies should be broken up into regional authorities with similarly elected/appointed officers/boards. Many if not most of these new agencies would be self-funding through Congressionally approved ability to levy targeted taxes/fees. I know that sounds bad, but the point is to make the people feel the weight of what they vote for. Vote for an aggressive EPA head? Then feel the weight of directly paying for all of that EPA oversight/action. Ideally, each person should get a tax bill directly outlining their portion of paying for each agency so they know what each agency is costing them.
The amazing thing is that this could be done without a Constitutional amendment *and* without Presidential support (something to keep in mind the next time a Dem President blocks a Republican Congress’ efforts at reform). How? Through “Compacts between the States” as authorized by the Constitution. They simply need Congressional approval — and the harder bit — getting States to sign on. The old Federal agencies would probably have to stick around as long as some States weren’t willing to sign on to the associated compact(s). So, it’d be a confusing mess for a while, with conflicting authorities, but that should work to tie the hands of the federal bureaucrats as each time they move to do something onerous, more States would sign on to the associated compact and remove themselves from underneath that agency. Just the threat of a State being able to remove itself from the control of an agency would go a long way toward reigning in the excesses of unelected bureaucrats (misbehave and your power base and budget shrinks).
The compacts can be constructed any way Congress sees fit (without Presidential approval) as long as States are willing to sign up.
Imagine a day when we get to express our opinion on environmental policy by voting for the head of the equivalent of the EPA (whether that be at the national level or regional), and it’s board members. At the same time we’d get to express our opinion (possibly not party-wise in line with the EPA vote) on say the SEC, FTC etc. The really big advantage to this approach is that it un-muddies the vote for President. The President goes back to being primarily about head of state and the civilian leader of the military. The debates over environmental, policy (etc.) would be within those elections and the Presidential debates will be about leadership and less about how they’ll attempt to direct the unmanageable bureaucracy.
There are certainly many possible pitfalls and much thought needs to be put into how to property structure these compacts and handle the elections/appointments. I’ve covered one approach to the executive function (head) and the legislative function (boards), what about alternative ideas and what about the judicial function? Should there be a judicial branch within each agency (doesn’t sound good to me but many agencies already have such things) or have it continue to use the overloaded and slow federal court system, or some combination? How exactly to best set up their revenue streams? There’s much to discuss and work out.
I think people are missing the meaning of the deep state. The deep state is not about run away spending, unionized employees that should have never been allowed to unionize, ridiculous spending. The deep state is Biden’s DOJ going after MAGA, Donald Trump, Republicans of Jan 6. The meeting in the
white house with Obama, Biden, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Commie, the CIA leader, after Trumps election in 2016 to do every thing in their power to undermine Trump and create lies and deception such as the Russia, Russia, Russia story that was totally fabricated by Hillary Clinton people. The 53 high officials that signed the letter saying Hunter Biden’s lap top was Russian disinformation. The illegal use of the FISA court for warrants that were used against republicans, and Trump friends. Trying to imprison Trump for anything they could possibly think up, and had plans to break up his wealthy empire and leave he and his family broke.
The thing you have to get in your head is that nothing is off the table when it comes to never letting republicans run the country. Even after the disaster of the Biden presidency, they would still rather be in charge to press the DEI and woke, and equity not equality, and people they are not the same thing.