Free Republic

Trump is draining the swamp —Rebuilding government may be impossible In the 2013 novel “A Delicate Truth,” John le Carré presents the “deep state” as a moneyed, cultured élite — the “non-governmental insiders from banking, industry, and commerce” whose access to information allows them to rule in secret. Trump’s conception is quite different. A real-estate baron, Trump is at war with the clerks — the apparatchiks who, he claims, are seeking to nullify the election by denying the prerogatives of his Administration. This attack on “bureaucracy” is really an attack on the State Department, the intelligence community and ordinary bureaucrats...

Lawmakers and bureaucrats in official Washington often act as if their decisions lead the nation forward. News from Iowa this week, however, shows once again that the culture leads and politicians lag behind. Kim Reynolds became Iowa's Governor last May when her predecessor (Terry Branstad) resigned to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to China. Reynolds is now running for her own full term in a state where the average Obamacare premiums jumped 57 percent. "Many Iowans faced a choice of going broke or going without insurance," according to Reynolds. "And that's really not a real choice." Seizing the opportunity...

In the last 12 months, U.S.-backed combat operations drove ISIS from its last bits of territory. America withdrew from the Paris agreement on climate change, UNESCO, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The House and Senate have come within sight of overhauling the tax code and dismantling Obamacare. Most recently, Donald Trump -- in a spectacular departure from his predecessor's Middle Eastern diplomacy -- has moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. It is as if a hurricane has swept through Washington. Each fallen pillar represents a very deliberate reversal of the status quo ante policies of Barack Obama. The entire...

Florida Senator Marco Rubio admits that the Republican tax cut plan to aid corporations and the wealthy will require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for it. Rubio told reporters this week that in order to address the federal deficit, which will grow by at least $1 trillion if the tax plan passes, Congress will need to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security. Advocates for the elderly and the poor have warned that entitlement programs would be on the chopping block, but this is the first time a prominent Republican has backed their claims. “We have to...

The White House proposed a $5.7 billion budget for EPA in fiscal 2018. That’s a 31 percent cut from 2017 numbers. A 31 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would force it to eliminate at least 50 individual programs and nearly 4,000 full-time equivalents in 2018, according to internal EPA documents that describe funding levels and policy decisions that support the President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget request.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney will send a letter this week ordering federal agencies to prepare for massive cuts, according to a report from Axios. As part of Donald Trump’s plan to streamline federal government, Mulvaney will demand that federal agencies significantly reduce their costs and increase efficiency. The reorganization will likely involve selling assets, laying off employees, and the cancellation of programs deemed unnecessary. The letter will fall in line with Trump’s executive order from March 13th, which dictates Mulvaney “propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies (as defined in section 551(1)...

Our big spending national government—whether Republican, Democrat or whatever—ran up a national debt approaching ten trillion dollars during the 220 and some odd years prior to Obama taking office. During Obama’s 8 year term, our big spending government nearly doubled that debt. No one’s fault (cough, cough), but we and our posterity are now staring at an unbelievable, unmanageable, unsustainable, unpayable mountain of twenty trillion dollars in accumulated debt with no let up in sight! In fact they want to continue the wholesale printing and spending of money we don’t have and they’re planning on raising the debt ceiling to...

I grow weary, beyond weary really, with the “but the Democrats” crap. And I shouldn’t be alone. We just had an election — Democrats got trounced. There are fewer Democrats in the legislative branch across the country since before the Great Depression. There is a Republican president to go along with those legislative majorities as well. Democrats lost more than 900 seats nationwide during the Obama years. The Democrats are literally in disarray and powerless. 1. Let me repeat that — the Democrats are literally powerless. Republicans have all the political and parliamentary power to do pretty much whatever they...

<p>Slap them back twice as hard. You have the force of God and the people with you. You have been raised up by God to smite the evil America-hating, Christian-hating, Jew-hating, freedom-hating SOBs.</p> <p>You were elected by we the people (per the constitution) to drain the swamp and make America great again. One nation under God!</p>

Et tu, Cavuto? Hey faux and other globalist networks: One of the primary reasons we elected Trump is because he's a fighter for freedom, for America and for our constitution! He's not a wimp and does not rollover for the enemedia or the globalist GOPe ruling class!! Dear Mr. President, We're behind you all the way against the treasonous leftist fakenews media and the turncoat GOPe RINOs!! Damn the media torpedoes, full speed ahead!! Fight, baby, fight!! Cut, baby, cut!! Drain the swamp!! MAGA!!

The former head of President Donald Trump’s transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he expects the new administration to seek significant budget and staff cuts. Myron Ebell said in an interview with The Associated Press that Trump is likely to seek significant reductions to the agency’s workforce — currently about 15,000 employees nationwide. Ebell, who left the transition team last week, declined to discuss specific numbers of EPA staff that could be targeted for pink slips. Asked what he would personally like to see, however, Ebell said slashing the agency’s size by about half would be a...

Within four hours of becoming president of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to limit immediately the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) in ways that are revolutionary. With the stroke of a pen, the president assaulted the heart of the law that was the domestic centerpiece of his predecessor’s administration. How did this happen? How can a U.S. president, who took an oath to enforce the laws faithfully, gut one of them merely because he disagrees with it? Here is the back story. When ObamaCare went through Congress in 2010, all...

It was one of the promises Donald Trump made on the campaign trail which drew widespread approbation from conservatives while spurring varying degrees of either anger or depression among the beltway crowd. Trump said that it would be more of an ax than a new broom when it comes to the size of the federal workforce and he would freeze hiring if elected. The pledge led as many as a third of federal workers to say they might walk off the job if he was elected. So would he really do it? Well… that didn’t take long. (Government Executive)...

“I think as an industry, we’re excited about working together with the president and his administration on tax policies, on regulation, and on trade to really create a renaissance in American manufacturing,” Fields told reporters after the meeting, according to the Detroit News. Fields also praised Trump’s decision to kill former President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, pointing out that it failed to address currency manipulation.

Donald Trump is ready to take an ax to government spending. Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned. The changes they propose are dramatic. The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the...

(videos at link) Full Title : Donald Trump looking for fast way to QUIT climate agreement: President-elect who said global warming is a 'hoax' wants to 'leave Paris deal as soon as possible' Subtitle : Since Trump was elected, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris Agreement Trump has called global warming a hoax and has promised to quit the Paris Agreement He was considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord, according to the source 'It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before...

Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, sending the Republican businessman to the White House as the first president-elect with no prior experience in government or the military. Trump’s unexpected victory sent shockwaves throughout the country and the world, and will likely do the same for federal agencies. Trump has promised to institute a government wide hiring freeze on his first day in office and to change civil service laws to ease the firing of disloyal workers. Last month, just 65 percent of federal employees said they were committed to staying in their jobs if Trump were elected.

Donald Trump's transition team is preparing for the billionaire businessman to take over as commander in chief, they're ruffling a few feathers along the way. Scientific American reports Trump has selected climate change critic, Myron Ebell, to lead his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team. Ebell, who's the director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, has been described by Newsweek as a fierce opponent of climate change, which the publisher calls “entirely at odds with scientific consensus.” David Goldston, a policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, explained that...

1. Reduce Bureaucratic Red Tape Republican leaders made it easier to do business in Indiana. They reduced bureaucratic red tape and eliminated many unnecessary regulations. Rather than burdening employers and trying to micromanage how businesses operate, Republicans put in place policies that have allowed our state to grow. 2. Balance the Budget The state put its fiscal house in order. Statehouse leaders cut government spending, balanced the budget, created a surplus, and built a near record reserve fund. Indiana earned a triple-A credit rating in 2010 and has maintained it ever since. These strategies help put the state in a...

Just 30 minutes ahead of the fourth GOP presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, Senator Ted Cruz dropped a plan over at National Review to eliminate five major federal government agencies. "We will sharply reduce the alphabet soup of government entities, beginning with the ABCs that should not exist in the first place: The Agencies, Bureaus, Commissions, and other programs that are constitutionally illegitimate and harmful to American households and businesses. It's time to return to a federal government that abides by our constitutional framework and strips power from unelected bureaucrats," Cruz writes. First Cruz proposes the elimination of the IRS, which...