Posted on 11/12/2024 2:40:29 PM PST by TBP
One of the very best Presidents we have ever had was Calvin Coolidge. What sets him a part is that he's the only one to actually successfully reduce the size of Government.
There were 5 main approaches he took to make this happen. If Trump follows his example, he has a good chance at being the only other President to do this. That would be a huge win.
To his credit, some of the steps President Trump has already taken, sets him up to actually make this happen. It's going to require him to make his policy clear, and he has to be willing to fight for it. Something he didn't do in his first term.
1. Budgetary Discipline and Accountability
Coolidge put together a team to scrutinize spending. He made each department justify their expenses in minute detail. His administration prioritized cutting all non-essential spending and defunded under producing programs. You either deliver, or you're cut.
2. Tax Cuts
Coolidge cut the taxes on the TOP tax payers from 58% to 25%. This massively stimulated the economy and created massive job growth, thus creating more tax payers! Combined with the spending cuts in step one, Coolidge broke the Keynesian loop DC falls into. Deficits were crushed and the Government had a surplus, which he used to cut the debt as well.
3. Collaborating with Cabinet and Staff
Coolidge surrounded himself with Cabinet Secretaries that shared his vision in reducing the burden of DC on taxpayers. He made his plans clear, and demanded strict adherence to them. Any plan to create a new program had to be met with a cut elsewhere to pay for it.
4. He actually drained the swamp
He reduced the workforce in various agencies, scaled back their operations, and opposed the creation of new federal programs, and probably the greatest move in history was that he believed that most programs that DC Departments wanted, would best be managed at the State level. He empowered the States. That last part is important because still today, almost every Federal Program is completely dependent on the States to execute. They manage it more efficiently.
5. Streamlined Operations and Efficiency Measures
Coolidge brought a business management approach to DC emphasizing minimalism and efficiency across the board. “The chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing, and prospering in the world.” and to drive his approach home even deeper, “It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”
Calvin Coolidge was uniquely focused on starving the beast.
President Trump is taking some steps towards this. His appointment of Elon Musk to lead a "Government Efficiency Commission" to conduct a full audit of the Federal Government is a step in the right direction.
The challenge before Musk however is the question on whether he will include Trump's own new programs in that audit. More so, will Trump actually listen to Elon's advice? Lastly, will President Trump take action based upon that audit?
Would Trump scrap his own programs if Musk pointed out their wastefulness?
One monster that President Trump faces, that Coolidge did not have to face is the entrenched Public Unions that run the bureaucracy in DC. It's these unions and their policies encoded into employment contracts that made it difficult to do things like outright fire Fauci and Brix (among others).
If President Trump comes for those jobs, he had better be ready for the media and public outcry that will come from this. He will NOT be popular with even the very people on his own team. Many Administration members will have associates and even mentors that they came up through the ranks with, whose jobs are now no longer essential. Can he push his team to fire their friends?
Candidate Trump promised a whole lot of new programs. These programs require funding, bureaucracy, and the States cooperation to effect. This is counter to Gov efficiency.
Can Musk show the guts to stand firm with Donald Trump and be frank with him? Or is Musk wanting to be popular and loved? When he starts naming names and departments that should be cut, you can expect counter attacks on his own businesses.
One thing that Musk has, more than anybody else in that entire administration is a VERY LOUD MICROPHONE! If he's willing to use it, like Reagan did, he can cut around the pushback and bring a spot light to the roaches in the swamp. This approach will also encourage Trump to act accordingly. Musk must be willing to do what usually gets people in the Trump Administration fired. He must be willing to call balls and strikes on Trump policy and programs..... PUBLICALLY.
Musk has the ability to bring a whole lot of attention, good or bad, on member of Congress that won't play ball in cutting fraud, waste, and abuse in DC. He needs to be willing to use it, regardless of the personal cost it will incur on him.
Can, or will he do this? I don't know. Time will tell.
Calvin Coolidge succeeded because he placed policy before party, and even before himself. Principled ruled his fortitude in the face of outcry. He was not a Populist. He was a Conservative.
If Trump and Musk put down the Populist need for adoration, and actually fight to kneecap DC, they can do it.
The question is do they have the intestinal fortitude and character to whether the storm and FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!?!
If anyone wishes to deny their truth [of the Founders], the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.—Calvin Coolidge, on the 150th anniversary
... of the Declaration of Independence, 1926
Thanks to John F. Kennedy.
Executive Order 10988 issued by President John F. Kennedy on January 17, 1962, granted federal employees the right to collective bargaining.
If it was done by executive order, it can be undone by executive order. Trump should issue an EO repealing 10988.
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