DOGE has sucked up all the oxygen regarding the dismantling of our ridiculously overstuffed federal government. The government has grown out of control as new agencies are regularly birthed with little knowledge of the people funding these agencies – you. Someone has their head on straight in the Trump Administration and they have a plan that should effectively shrink the growth.
On February 19th, President Trump signed an executive order to address this issue. The order is entitled Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s Department of Government Efficiency Deregulator Initiative.
The Executive Order (EO) addresses what requirements should exist for any rulemaking and enforcement and requires agencies to rescind regulations that are inconsistent with laws passed by Congress.
To pursue these goals, the EO requires agencies to coordinate with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by providing OMB, within 60 days, with a list of regulations that are:
• Unconstitutional or raise “serious constitutional difficulties.”
• Based on unlawful delegations of legislative power.
• Not based on the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition.
• Related to matters of social, political, or economic significance, and are not based on clear statutory authority.
• Costly to private parties and not outweighed by resulting public benefits.
• Impediments to certain administrative priorities (innovation, energy production and reducing inflation, for instance); or
• Burdensome to small businesses and entrepreneurship.
In short, this means that each cabinet department and independent agency needs to review the status of every regulation under which they operate and/or was created by that department or agency. They need to determine if Congress lawfully authorizes those regulations. They also need to determine whether those regulations pose undue economic harm to the people affected by the regulations.
This is fascinating. Over the past 100 years or so, a multitude of regulations have been placed into the Federal Register (FR) where such regulations are announced. In 2024, the FR had 96,088 pages. No one truly knows what is in there and how much is applicable or in compliance with Congressional mandates. Or additionally, totally antiquated, but can be used to only harm or expand the governance of our lives.
A perfect example of this problem is what the Biden Administration did with student loan forgiveness. It was ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court. Their team of hyperbolic attorneys repeatedly dredged up some new justification from some obscure regulation that was an interpretation of a law to continue Biden’s lawless handout of billions of our dollars.
There remains no clarity as to what is controlling our government’s action. Any smarty pants young attorney given enough time can make a claim that some desired action is legal and then we either are spending more money we don’t have or being told we cannot do something that negatively impacts our lives or livelihood. If we don’t like it, we must take the government to court to get their action overturned.
Daniel Goldbeck, the Director of Regulatory Policy at the American Action Forum (a center-right think tank), stated this EO is a “thermonuke deregulatory warhead.” Kimberly Strassel, a columnist at the Wall Street Journal stated, “The President ordered agency heads to scour every regulation and bit of guidance under their remit and make lists of those that violate the Constitution, exceed legislative power, go beyond the clear words of the statute or harm the national interest.”
One phrase in Strassel’s statement captures the essence of the problem – “goes beyond the clear words of the statute.” Perhaps the unelected bureaucrats or their bosses told them to figure out how to accomplish something that the law passed by Congress did not state was the direction of the law. The bureaucrat then synthesizes in their mind what the real intention of the law was and then creates a regulation to accomplish their desired goal, not that of the Congress. They then state this is the rule, if you don’t like it, sue us. If a citizen is faced with these made-up interpretations, they must use their own dollars to fight it while the bureaucrat is using OPM (other people’s money) to fight them.
Of course, there will be hysteria. There will be talk of the Trump authoritarian government. Leticia James will gather a gaggle of AGs from Left-wing run states who will forum shop a federal judge appointed by Obama or Biden who will attempt to place a national injunction on the Trump action. U.S. Senators like Chris Murphy (D-Conn) will tell the press how Trump is doing this because of his allegiance to Putin.
The fascinating part of this is the Trump Administration is doing this to assert the authority of the U.S. Congress. A group of people who allow bureaucrats to run roughshod over their authority. Then some will complain about what Trump is doing on their behalf and call him a strongman authoritarian.
It is about time that our government took this action. We must eliminate the inappropriate and costly dictates at their roots. If done successfully, we have a chance to take back our government from the permanent administrative state.