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| Trump’s Musk, Ramaswamy Appointments Aim to Drain the Swamp |
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By Timothy H. Lee
Thursday, November 14 2024 |
Among the myriad indignities and hardships inflicted upon the American people and economy throughout recent decades of boundless government expansion, none exceed those of the progressively unrestrained federal administrative leviathan. That’s not a novel indignity. Our Founding Fathers specifically cited bureaucratic abuse among their grievances against the king in the Declaration of Independence, saying, “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” Just this week, we witnessed the latest tragic example. Spirit Airlines announced that it is preparing to file for bankruptcy after merger discussions with Frontier Airlines collapsed and after the Department of Justice sued to prevent earlier purchase by JetBlue Airways. How did that needless bureaucratic intervention benefit consumers, company employees or investors? The incessant administrative onslaught finally provoked pushback from the United States Supreme Court. In recent terms, the Court drastically reduced what’s known as “Chevron Deference” permissiveness toward federal bureaucracies, and also sharply limited agencies’ authority to impose regulations significantly impacting the U.S. economy. Following Donald Trump’s sweeping electoral victory, however, it appears that help from within the executive branch is finally on the way. Throughout this year’s presidential campaign, Trump repeated his signature promise to “drain the swamp,” a commitment to eliminate inefficiency, corruption and entrenched interest influence within the federal government. That vision entails restructuring the executive branch’s administrative bureaucracies, which have over the years become bloated, grinding and resistant to reform. If we can streamline responsibilities, reduce red tape and restore decisionmaking authority toward elected officials rather than career technocrats, that will empower the electorate and increase accountability. The leading way to achieve that goal, of course, is through executive branch appointments. By choosing cabinet members and other personnel who share his vision of making government leaner and more accountable, the Trump/Vance administration might finally bring reform that alters the culture and performance of the federal administrative state. Enter Tesla chief Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. This week, President-Elect Trump announced that Musk and Ramaswamy would lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE.” That name plays upon a 2010s popular meme and subsequent Dogecoin cryptocurrency, and the agency would operate outside of the formal federal government bureaucracy itself. Responding to his selection, Yale University Law School alumnus Ramaswamy persuasively noted that the new DOGE would fulfill the Supreme Court’s recent mandates: Here’s a key point about our mission at DOGE: eliminating bureaucratic regulation isn’t a mere policy preference. It’s a legal *mandate* from the U.S. Supreme Court:
- West Virginia v. EPA (2022) held that agencies cannot decide major questions of economic or political significance without “clear congressional authorization.” This applies to *thousands* of rules that never passed Congress.
- In Loper Bright v. Raimondo (2024), the Court ended Chevron deference, which means agencies can’t foist their own interpretations of the law onto the American people. Over 18,000 federal cases cited the Chevron doctrine, often to uphold regulations, many of which are now null and void.
- In SEC v. Jarkesy (2024), SCOTUS restricted the use of “administrative law judges” by agencies. The same agency that wrote the rules shouldn’t be able to prosecute citizens in “courts” that it controls.
- In Corner Post v. Board of Governors (2024), the Court held that new businesses can challenge old regulations, greatly expanding the statute of limitations & opening many more rules up for scrutiny. So we shouldn’t just look at rules passed in the last four years, but over the past 4 decades (or more).
DOGE is ready to help the U.S. government conform to the U.S. Constitution once again. @elonmusk and I are ready to serve.
For his part, Musk promises to accomplish within the federal “deep state” what he accomplished at X (formerly Twitter) by drastically reducing bloat and increasing efficiency. Also this week, the Trump/Vance transition team proposed an executive order that would create a review board of retired military officers to expose inefficiencies and root out personnel unfit for leadership. Although nothing is guaranteed, these proposals might finally bring reform to the overextended federal administrative state. By selecting people like Musk and Ramaswamy who commit to cutting bureaucracy, reducing wasteful spending and bringing accountability, Trump can take the nation toward a leaner, more effective, more responsive government. Accomplishing that will depend upon consistent execution and follow-through, but his choice of such decisive private sector leaders lays the groundwork for transformation at long last. Federal bureaucrats serve the American people, we don’t serve them. It’s time that national governance reflects that. |
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