Trump's DOGE could face Congress protecting its turf

 

Gordon L. Weil

There’s a new government department.  Except that it’s not part of the government and it’s not a department. 

It’s the Department of Government Efficiency, known at DOGE.  Sounds like something you’d make up, maybe as a video game, but it is real.  Its leaders aren’t confirmed by the Senate, its staff is not taxpayer funded, it communicates by social media, and it reports to a president who is not yet in office.

It exists and is functioning.  President-elect Trump expects it to respond to the broad concern that the government is not working and is not responsive to the public’s needs and priorities.

Trump has been acting presidential well before he takes office.  Of course, he has presidential experience, but his early moves are likely to set a new precedent in governing.  Creating a seemingly real government department before he gets into the White House is part of his effort.

He gave the agency to Elon Musk, on paper the world’s richest man, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who wants to be president one day.  Both are wealthy enough to finance DOGE and use Musk’s X social media to communicate.

The two men issue recommendations, which at times sound more like their wish list than measures to improve federal government operations.  But DOGE should be taken seriously, because it was created for them by President-elect Trump, and he takes it seriously.

DOGE has three purposes.  It would bring federal spending under greater control to reduce the annual deficit, allowing taxes to be cut, not raised.  It would eliminate unwanted, unnecessary or overlapping agencies or functions, reducing the size of government.  It would give the president increased ability to control the government.

The early proposals by the two DOGE bosses are somewhat scattershot, but responsive to the Trump Republican agenda.  The Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are at risk of outright elimination.  Even the Defense Department bureaucracy may be in for cuts.

In line with the Supreme Court’s doubt about the powers of independent regulatory agencies, DOGE might want to pare down the staffs of such bodies, including the IRS.  Outlays for culture, public health, and NASA could all be reduced.  But plans have not yet taken final form.

Ultimately, the DOGE spirit might extend to dealing with the two largest areas of federal spending, Social Security and Medicare.  Decisions about their future funding must come soon.  One solution would be to reduce benefits, which may sit well with DOGE.

The success of this cost-cutting approach may depend on Congress.  The president cannot close agencies or programs that exist under law.  Although Trump disagrees, the law now prevents a president from refusing to spend money on congressionally mandated programs.  He would need the consent of Congress to enact at least some major DOGE proposals.

While that may sound easy with a GOP Congress, it’s not a certainty. Many programs exist because members of Congress want to please specific constituencies.  Regardless of their party, they may be reluctant to kill or cut them.  Partisan support for the president may not overcome catering to their backers.

Evidence exists that Trump and DOGE may inevitably face a hard sell.  The Government Accountability Office, something like the national accountant, has already looked at much of what DOGE is supposed to do, but the agency is mostly ignored.

The GAO has published a detailed list of hundreds of federal programs that duplicate or overlap other programs.  For example, 80 economic development programs are run by four different agencies.  They exist thanks to proposals by members of Congress or turf battles among the agencies.  They probably waste billions of dollars.

Even more worrisome is the GAO High Risk Series, which “identifies government operations with vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or in need of transformation.”  Sometimes agencies heed warnings and undertake enough reforms to get off the list.  There are now 34 GAO warnings. but the president and Congress take little interest in them.

Presidents and department heads are selected for political reasons, not their administrative abilities.  A function like DOGE could make sense if it were independent and not overly ideological.  Of course, GAO could be used, if it were taken more seriously.

So-called zero-base budgeting for agencies could also be used.  Under it, they would regularly develop the lowest budget needed to get their missions accomplished and request any new funding for going beyond that.  Congress could eliminate or create programs.  President Jimmy Carter installed a workable ZBB, but it was gone by the presidency of George W. Bush.

Large organizations, public or private, will always be inefficient.  Though its agenda may turn out to be overly personal, too partisan or controversial, Trump’s DOGE recognizes that inefficiency may have gone too far, causing lost public confidence in government.

Trump's tariffs: both good and bad

Gordon L. Weil

Many years ago, I found myself in the middle of an international war.

As tough as each side was, I was fortunate that the ammunition was not bullets.  It was chickens.

The U.S. was the major supplier of chickens to Europe, but the organization now called the EU or European Union wanted to promote its own production, mainly in Germany.  So, it increased its tariff on imported chickens.  American producers protested, and the government retaliated by raising U.S. tariffs on several products.  The result was the “Chicken War.”

The most important U.S. tariff was placed on trucks with the aim of cutting imports of VW vans.  But trucks from all over the world were affected.  Eventually, tariffs on other items, including chickens, were either dropped or lost importance.  But the tariff on trucks remains, decades later, though some foreign producers learned how to dodge it.

As the sole American on the EU staff, my role was to improve understanding between the U.S. and Europe and help defuse the conflict.  Eventually, EU President Walter Hallstein met with President Lyndon Johnson.  Acting on behalf of the Europeans, I had the unusual opportunity of negotiating with the State Department the joint statement of the two presidents.

The moral of the story is that tariff wars have consequences.  Trucks are probably more expensive in the U.S. today thanks to the surviving tariff and because American producers could raise their prices when faced with less competition from abroad.   The Chicken War was hardly just chicken feed.

President-elect Trump likes tariffs.  He sees them as both a threat and a promise.  He seems reluctant to accept that they drive up prices and are likely to bring retaliation that will reduce U.S. exports.  Because other countries can sometimes sell Americans essential products or have lower costs of production, he claims the U.S. is subsidizing them.

Beyond economics, Trump clearly would use tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy.  If he wants a country to halt the flow of immigrants or drugs or even to increase its own military spending, he uses the tariff threat to force change.  Trump’s surprising style, untethered to tradition, can cause others to take his threats seriously. 

Aside from the impact on exports and imports and on consumer prices, the liberal use of tariffs may bring political and economic change.  Trading partners will look for alternatives and not merely submit.

He threatens both Canada and Mexico with higher tariffs unless they stop illegal immigration.  As a result, they may take action even before he takes office.  But the U.S. depends heavily on Canadian crude oil.  If a 25 percent tariff were added, U.S. refineries and their customers would pay more.  And Canada can redirect some sales to Asia.

Trump may do a lot to boost European unification.  Europe is equal to the U.S. as a market, so it could absorb much of its production that can’t enter the U.S.  Higher world prices created by the Trump tariffs would be an incentive for the Europeans to step up their own production to displace American imports.

The aspect of tariffs that holds promise for Trump is that new federal revenues would be collected at the border.  His assumption must be that imports will not be slowed by higher tariffs, so they could create the income necessary to finance the federal government, which meanwhile would be cutting income taxes.

For the moment, that’s pure theory.  Tariffs drive up prices unless foreign suppliers swallow them.  In practice, imports decline when imported goods cost more. Lower imports may produce lower tariff revenues. The revenue effect is greater when the tariff increase is greater. So, tariffs may not be quite as magical as Trump seems to believe.

Yet good reasons exist for raising some tariffs.  That happens when Americans are willing to pay more for goods through a tax disguised as a tariff to achieve national policy goals. 

If the U.S. is concerned about excessive dependence on imports of essential goods, aiding domestic producers or ensuring worldwide environmental standards, greater tariff protection may make sense.  Labor unions oppose trade deals because jobs may be shipped abroad.  But helping workers comes at a price.

China profits from exploiting its own labor and using its polluting coal to produce low-cost goods for American merchants.  Its gains pay for increased Chinese military spending used to expand its influence, threaten Taiwan and to menace the U.S. and its allies on the seas. 

It makes sense to cut China’s sales to the U.S. to level the playing field and reduce its funds for military expansion.  Customers may willingly be taxed for this effort.

Trump’s tariff threats may sometimes work, but their effect goes well beyond raising consumer prices.  Higher tariffs have both economic and political effects, sometimes long-term and often not obvious.  

Bigger U.S. House could renew fading Congress

 

Gordon L. Weil

Jared Golden is trying to close a circle that’s as old as the Constitution.

As one of Maine’s U.S. House members, he wants the House to take a new look at an old subject.  He has proposed that the House of Representatives should consider adding members.

During the drafting of the Constitution, the Framers debated the size of the House.  The original argument was so heated that it was the sole issue that caused George Washington to speak out at the Constitutional Convention.

How many people should be represented by a member of the House?  Too few would be undemocratic and but too many might be hard to manage.  James Madison, the chief drafter and later the fourth president, argued the problem would solve itself.  As more states joined, the House would naturally grow.

That worked until 1900, when the number of members stopped at 435.  In 1929, it was formally frozen there.  When Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii had joined, their seats were taken from other states.

The result is that the number of people in any single House district is now larger that the entire population of some states.  Each Maine district includes more people than the entire population of the state of Wyoming.   The math shows that a voter in Wyoming has more power than a voter in Maine.

An easy path to voter equality would be to set the population for each district across the country at the population of the smallest state, Wyoming.  I calculate that would increase the House to about 573 members, an added 138 seats.  Even a larger House could make sense.

Adding new states should mean more seats were added, as originally intended.  The number of House seats should also increase as the national population grows. The purpose should be to keep the House representative and its members in touch with voters.

That increase would still leave the U.S. with a higher population per voter than any other major nation.  Citizens would remain distant from their representatives, and members might remain limited as true representatives of their people’s pulse.

One advantage of expansion would be the need for thorough redistricting into smaller districts.  That would make racial or political gerrymandering more difficult by making districts more compact. And it would certainly open the way for many new faces in Congress, which could enable more women and minorities to gain seats.

With a larger House, each member would not need to be assigned to several committees. Assigned to fewer committees, they would have more time to become more expert.  There might also be more committees or subcommittees, allowing each to have a far sharper focus than is possible today.

House expansion, allowing members to become more expert on specific subjects, is not political daydreaming; it could turn out to be critically important.

The Supreme Court is moving steadily toward stripping regulatory agencies of their independent powers. When it completes its works, perhaps quite soon, their decision-making powers would end up with the president.  Yet regulation is nothing more than powers that Congress could itself exercise by law.  Congress, not the president, could take on more responsibility.

A larger Congress should include enough members that focused House committees could take on more detailed decision-making.  Such targeted committees could produce strict, general rules, allowing less room for special interests to work out deals with regulators behind closed doors. If Congress fails to act, it will continue to lose its powers to the president.

There’s another benefit to the proposal for expanding the House.  Many want the electoral vote for president to better align with the popular vote.  One major reason they can misalign is the unbalanced voting power of some states over others. Each state’s electoral vote is the sum of the number of its House and Senate members.

If the House were larger, the Electoral College would be larger.  The number of voters per electoral vote member would be closer to equal than it is now.  With electoral votes better distributed based on population, the electoral vote will come closer to reflecting the popular will. 

Of course, each state would retain at least one House seat and two senators, no matter its population.  That’s what the Constitution requires and would prevent a fully popular vote for president.

While amending the Constitution is almost impossible given today’s political divide plus and the growing efforts by the Court to apply its constitutional views, some issues like term limits or maximum ages of officials cannot be addressed. But Congress can change the number of House members, which could breathe some new life into an old system.

Unlike many of his colleagues who routinely accept the current system, Golden has a good idea that could produce major bipartisan reform.  It’s worthy of study and action.