Trump defiant

Fight! Fight! Fight! The Supreme Court ruling yesterday that allowed Trump’s plan to reorganize and reduce the federal workforce to go forward was far more significant than most realize. It in fact tells us that opposition to Trump’s effort is dissolving, and that he will have the ability in the last three years of his present term in office to complete this effort in a manner that will reshape the federal bureaucracy in ways so radical we will not recognize it when he is done — assuming Trump maintains his present aggressive effort.

First the background. In February Trump issued an executive order requiring agency managements throughout the executive branch to institute plans for reducing staffing signficiantly.

Titled “Implementing The President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Workforce Optimization Initiative,” the executive order also severely limits federal departments’ ability to bring on more staffers and mandates that agency heads closely coordinate with their DOGE representatives on future hiring plans. Once the hiring freeze that Trump put in place is lifted, agencies will only be allowed to replace one of every four employees who leave and hiring will be restricted to the highest-need areas.

Plus, agencies will not be able to fill vacancies for career positions that DOGE team leaders think should remain open, unless the department head determines they should be filled. DOGE leaders at each agency will file a monthly hiring report to DOGE.

Not surprisingly numerous lawsuits were immediately filed to block this order, claiming that Trump was required to get Congressional approval for such actions.

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The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed those charges. The short quote to the right by Justice Sonia Sotomayor reveals the rationale for this decision, while also signifying the logic the court’s majority will use in ruling on future suits. As long as Trump’s actions to reduce and reorganize federal agencies violate no specific mandates outlined in laws passed by Congress, he is within his rights as president to proceed.

Since Trump’s actions in this matter — as well as all his other actions since taking office — have always been careful to follow the laws that presently exist, we can expect that future lawsuits will likely fail.

That Sotomayor — a decidedly leftist member of the court — agrees with this rationale reinforces this conclusion. A strong majority of the court will do nothing to block Trump, as long as his actions do not directly violate written law created by Congress.

For example, Congress has created the National Institutes of Health, and sets the budget for that agency. In almost all cases (there are always exceptions), Congress has not specified what research grants should be accepted and funded. That decision was left to the agency — which functions entirely at the behest and order of the president. Thus, as long as Trump only cancels or cuts grants not specified by Congress, he will be free to do so.

Similarly, Trump is now free to reorganize entire agencies, cutting whole programs and departments, as long as those programs and departments are not specifically protected by Congress in legislation.

Congress might very well react to protect many of these programs and departments by adding legislative language. For example, in the reconciliation budget bill just passed, the Senate added language and funding to protect NASA’s SLS rocket, Orion capsule, and Lunar Gateway space station, all programs Trump wants to cut. Based on the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday, Trump will not be allowed to institute those cuts, unless future budgets passed by Congress eliminate that funding.

It is unlikely however that Congress will do this kind of thing extensively. Not only will it take too much time, it will become politically damaging. The public that voted for Trump wants these cuts, and will not look kindly at Congress for blocking them wholesale.

As long as Trump continues his aggressive effort to rein in and reduce the federal government while following the law, it now appears there will be little in his way to stop him. He now has three and a half years left to act. If he does so, the federal government in 2028 will resemble nothing we have seen since prior to the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt.

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all
the inhabitants thereof.” Photo credit: William Zhang

And this change is going to be long lasting. Even if a Democrat should win the presidency in 2028, he or she will not have the ability to rebuild that vast federal army quickly. The work force won’t be there any more, and to recreate it will take decades, the same length of time it took to first create it beginning with Roosevelt’s administration in the 1930s and 1940s. Then however the public wanted to fund such a work force, so the politics encouraged its growth.

Today the public is decidedly against it. It will be difficult if not impossible politically for future Congresses to recreate that huge federal leviathan.

Assuming Trump doesn’t falter in this effort, we are right now seeing a major historical shift in American politics and culture, more significant than anything since Roosevelt. And it is a shift back to the American basics that built the country in the first place: a limited federal government whose powers are small so that the citizens are free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, on their own and without interference.