Trump vs. the Bureaucracy

Trump vs. the Bureaucracy

Trump is the first president in living memory to actually cut the federal work force.

Reagan tried. Reagan failed.

Trump actually delivered.

He also worked assiduously to make the President the boss of his underling bureaucrats, instead of the bureaucrats being the President's boss.

What a concept. The boss sets policy and tells the subordinate paper-pushers what to do?

Although Trump is often described as an impulsive, undisciplined leader, he has remained sharply focused on advancing reforms aimed at increasing presidential power over the unelected federal bureaucracy. RealClearInvestigations' review of dozens of executive actions and agency regulations found that the Trump administration has taken historic steps to shrink the branch of government he runs, make agencies more accountable to elected officials, and reduce Washington's regulatory control over the private sector.,,,

These efforts have reduced the federal workforce to levels unseen since the 1960s and generated hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings. They have also produced Supreme Court rulings affirming presidential authority to remove subordinates and rein in independent agencies, along with deregulatory savings estimated at trillions of dollars.

"[F]rom almost the first day of the president's second term, the administration has been at work in the most extensive project since the New Deal to recapture for the elected branches what has been given away over many decades to the permanent bureaucratic class," Hillsdale College professor Ronald J. Pestritto wrote in a monograph lauding the president's initiatives late last year.