Rock Flipping – Reagan, Gingrich, Trump, and Maine

Years ago, my job was “rock flipping” – for Speaker Gingrich. Over five years, my job was to investigate, dig out, shine light on, and do criminal referrals for bad actors – bureaucrats, politicians, contractors. Starting with the Waco investigation, we ripped up the floorboards. Never slept better. So, how do you do it, get at rot?

Ronald Reagan, for whom I also worked, practiced strong leadership, good government, and oversight. Basics: Keep government small, punish bad actors, cut, fire without regret or nostalgia, and just stay on it.

When tearing apart the government to streamline and get accountability for the People, first ask if a task needs to be done at all. Do we need it? Often, the answer is no.

Our Founders, Reagan, Gingrich, Trump, and conservatives err on the side of limiting – not expanding – government, less, not more. Power is the People’s.

In practical terms, eliminate anything unnecessary. Be ruthless, like you were tearing apart your closet in spring, toss, do not mull over programs that no longer fit, are moldy, stink, or were never good. Get rid of the misguided regulations. Terminate what is inconsistent with the taxpayer’s needs, kept by bureaucrats and politicians.

Rightly understood, “waste, fraud, and abuse” are sand in the gears. Waste is tax dollars stupidly misspent, often for more than the next year. Unneeded, it is a waste. Fraud is illegality, unauthorized, non-competed, self-interested, and hidden; it must be prosecuted. Abuse is misspending with avarice, extreme greed, or malice.

Reagan went after all of them. So did Gingrich, and now Trump. This is not shadow boxing, a political game, but entirely real. A huge percentage of what we give the government becomes waste, fraud, and abuse – federal and state levels. That is – in a word – illegal.

In Maine, a state audit – air-brushed of political, procurement, and contractor names – showed $2.1 billion in questionable contracts, sole-source, non-competed, papered after spent, pocketed by friends and family, waste, fraud, and abuse. Anything done? Nothing. Criminal? Yes. Internal corruption, to the top.

What does that mean? Like Reagan, Gingrich, and Trump, a reckoning, since – back to those basics – power and the money belong to the People, not government.

What other principles did Reagan apply? A team of well-heeled investigators was let loose on government, like German shorthairs flushing partridges, uninhibited. Inspectors general open every compartment of agencies, and can state level too.

What else? Go deep on management of government, which is different because no profit motive. Set performance measures or metrics, consistent with a strategy across the government – goals, objectives, aimed-for outcomes, not “how much money did you spend,” not “what did you spend it on,” but “what did you get for it? Revisit it annually. If taxpayers are not getting what they paid for, cut it.

Reagan also listened well to the private sector and citizens – in an ongoing way – to understand what the government was doing wrong, where off track. In effect, he turned citizens into inspectors general, got proactive, pro-business, pro-liberty.

Back in the Gingrich days, that was my job – as an investigator, attorney, fighter for truth – to hunt down waste, fraud, and abuse, get perpetrators to justice, and do countless criminal referrals. We did that daily and saved billions.

Life has a way of being ironic, which was for me, because a few years later – while running a small company – I got called back, this time to run a $2 billion government operation. I was a nightmare for the bureaucrats, as I knew their tricks.

Using Reagan’s and Gingrich’s principles, I overhauled operations at State – while also delivering program results, a balancing act, inspiring while rock flipping.

In the end, the key is making clear that the jig is up, no more tomfoolery – or you lose your job, or could be behind bars. Good behavior is rewarded, bad called out. Once that is clear, things get smooth.  Maine – like other blue states – needs “rock flipping” now. My goal, as “rock flipper in chief,” will be restoring accountability.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).