{"id":2026269,"date":"2023-09-08T18:51:03","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T22:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-conservative-group-lays-out-plan-to-gut-administrative-state-on-day-1-of-2nd-trump-term\/"},"modified":"2023-09-08T19:03:17","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T23:03:17","slug":"in-depth-conservative-group-lays-out-plan-to-gut-administrative-state-on-day-1-of-2nd-trump-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-conservative-group-lays-out-plan-to-gut-administrative-state-on-day-1-of-2nd-trump-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative group&#8217;s plan to dismantle administrative state in Trump&#8217;s second term."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-depth-conservative-group-lays-out-plan-to-gut-administrative-state-on-day-1-of-2nd-trump-term%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2026269&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div data-post-content=\"true\" class=\"post_content\" id=\"post_content\">\n<p>Former President Donald Trump has vowed to finish \u201cdraining the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-conservative-group-lays-out-plan-to-gut-administrative-state-on-day-1-of-2nd-trump-term\/\" title=\"Conservative group's plan to dismantle <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/arizona-governor-after-censure-vote-state-party-should-focus-on-winning-races\/\" title=\"Arizona Governor After Censure Vote: State Party Should \u2018Focus On Winning Races\u2019\">administrative state<\/a> in Trump&#8217;s second term.&#8221;>swamp\u201d\u2014eliminating special interests<\/a> and bad actors from the \u200bfederal government\u2014and make it easier to fire \u201crogue bureaucrats\u201d who undermine\u200c presidential policies.<\/p>\n<p>Other Republican candidates have even \u200dbolder plans to attack the so-called administrative \u2064state\u2062 by\u200c eliminating entire federal agencies.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Gov. \u200dRon DeSantis \u200bwould close the IRS \u200band the U.S. Departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy. Former\u2064 Vice President Mike\u200d Pence would shutter the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department \u2062of Education, and \u201cclean house\u201d at the Department of Justice (DOJ).<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Related Stories<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/opinion\/3-supreme-court-cases-could-shake-up-the-administrative-state-5483344\">3 Supreme Court \u200bCases Could Shake Up the Administrative State<\/a><br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-comp-caption\">8\/30\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/house-passes-reins-act-to-curb-administrative-state-5333759\">House Passes REINS Act to Curb\u200b Administrative State<\/a><br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-comp-caption\">6\/14\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Any of those aims would be abetted by the \u200befforts of\u2064 a cadre of former Trump staffers \u200dwho have \u2064created\u200b a detailed transition plan aimed at dismantling the administrative state beginning \u200con the first \u200dday of the next presidential \u2062term.<\/p>\n<p>Project 2025 is both a policy agenda and recruitment \u2063effort intended\u200d to reshape the federal\u200b bureaucracy by instituting sweeping policy changes \u200band replacing\u2062 tens of\u2063 thousands of federal workers \u200cwith vetted, trained, ideologically conservative employees\u200d ready to execute\u200c an extreme \u2062makeover of the \u200bexecutive branch.<\/p>\n<p>Project 2025 is detailed in &#8220;Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative\u2062 Promise.&#8221; The nearly 1,000 page tome was written by\u200d a broad coalition of conservative thinkers\u2063 and activists to seize\u2064 what\u2063 they \u200dcall a \u201clast opportunity to save our\u200d republic.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"shortcode post-related-videos\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-placeholder\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The group is\u2063 close to its goal of\u2063 attracting\u200b almost 20,000 \u2063potential federal employees who are willing to move to Washington and reshape \u200cthe government in the mold of modern conservatism, Associate \u200cDirector Spencer Chretien told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u200d are \u2064doing the next president\u2019s work ahead of time, and \u2064expect many of our \u2062ideas, people, and plans to become a \u2062part of the next conservative administration,\u201d regardless of which conservative candidate is elected, Mr. Chretien said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe plan to dismantle the deep state, not the government,\u201d he added\u2063 said,\u2062 referring to\u2064 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wisconsin-senator-documents-big-tech-rigging-the-2022-election-against-republicans\/\" title=\"Wisconsin Senator Documents Big Tech Rigging The 2022 Election Against Republicans\">unelected government employees<\/a> and business leaders \u2063who influence \u200bU.S. \u200bpolicy.<\/p>\n<p>That may be \u2064easier said than done, \u2062according to some constitutional law experts. They \u2063point out that the president alone has \u2064limited power to \u2062institute wholesale change of the kind \u2062imagined by Project 2025 and its sponsor organization, The Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-5\">\n<h2>Growth\u200b of the\u200b Bureaucracy<\/h2>\n<p>Managing the federal government has been a headache for \u200cpresidents since the\u200d time of \u200cGeorge Washington. \u201cI anticipate\u2063 that\u200d one\u2063 of the most difficult and delicate parts of\u2064 the duty of\u200c my office will be that which\u200d relates \u2063to nominations for \u200dappointments,\u201d President\u2062 Washington wrote \u2064shortly\u200d after his inauguration in 1789.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Then, as now, the Constitution gave precious little guidance about staffing the government below\u2064 the level of \u200dappointed officials, according to Peter Kastor, chair of the history department at Washington University.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:640px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>An aerial\u200b view of the Pentagon in\u200c Arlington, Va., on Oct. 28, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson\/The\u2064 Epoch Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cNo sooner did the federal government come into being than Americans \u2063scrambled to create a federal workforce that could secure \u200bthe nation\u2019s goals,\u201d Mr. Kastor wrote in an article\u2063 for Brookings.<\/p>\n<p>Even in infancy, the United States was \u2064a vast country facing serious challenges. &#8220;All of these challenges\u2062 required policymaking strategies, but they also required federal personnel to \u2063bring those \u200bstrategies\u200d into being,\u201d Mr. Kastor wrote.<\/p>\n<p>By 1802, \u2064the country \u200bemployed jut over 3,900 people. By 1826, the number \u2064was more than\u2064 10,400.<\/p>\n<p>By 2022, more than 2 million people were employed by the federal government. The\u2064 vast majority work in the executive \u200dbranch, staffing more than 400 federal agencies \u2062from Agriculture to \u200cWest Point Academy \u200dand from the Bureau\u2063 of Indian Affairs to the\u2063 U.S. Mint.<\/p>\n<p>The \u200dfederal bureaucracy, because of its \u200dvast size \u2063and scope, is unwieldy\u200d and unresponsive\u200c even to the\u200d president of the United States, according to critics. It has virtually\u200c become a fourth branch of the government\u2014the administrative state.<\/p>\n<p>Presidents throughout \u200dhistory have railed against this problem.<\/p>\n<p>President Andrew \u2062Jackson swept a number of high ranking public officials from office after his inauguration, including attorneys, bureau chiefs, customs officers, and federal marshals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJackson claimed to \u200dbe purging the corruption, laxity, and arrogance that \u2063came with long tenure, and restoring the opportunity for government service to the citizenry at large through \u2018rotation in office,\u2019\u201d Daniel Feller, a history professor\u2062 at the University of Tennessee, wrote in an article\u200c for Brookings.<\/p>\n<p>President \u2062Warren Harding appointed friends to high ranking positions, only to find that they\u2062 were using those offices for \u200dpersonal gain. When critics pointed\u2064 that out, Harding\u2062 said, \u201cMy &#8230; friends &#8230; they\u2019re\u2063 the ones that keep me \u200cwalking the floors nights!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Richard\u200c Nixon, angered that his cabinet officers were\u2062 not\u2062 publicly \u200dsupporting his policies \u200con Cambodia, \u2062and in \u2063fact undermining them, retaliated \u200cby ordering the White House tennis court removed. President Nixon didn\u2019t enjoy the sport, but some of his cabinet \u200bmembers did.<\/p>\n<p>President Trump saw 92 percent turnover in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kneel-in-prayer-not-in-protest\/\" title=\"Kneel In Prayer, Not In Protest\">top-tier staff<\/a> in the four years\u200b of his\u200d administration, a record \u200bamong presidents. Questioned in Sept. 2018 about \u2062the so-called turmoil in his administration, President \u2063Trump \u200csaid, &#8220;We \u2062have acting people.\u200d The reason\u200b they are\u2063 acting \u2062is because \u200dI&#8217;m seeing how I like them,\u2064 and I&#8217;m liking a lot of\u200b them\u200c very, very much.\u200c There\u2064 are people \u200bwho have \u200ddone a bad job, and I let them \u200dgo. \u2062If you call\u200c that turmoil, I don&#8217;t call \u200dthat turmoil. I say that is being smart. That&#8217;s what \u200dwe do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:640px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>U.S.\u2063 President Donald Trump speaks in\u00a0 the Cabinet Room\u200d of the White House\u2063 on June 15, 2020. \u200b(Doug Mills-Pool\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The frustration \u200din executing\u2064 presidential policy even through hand-picked officials is magnified at the staff level, \u2063where tens of thousands of employees are required to implement any policy objective \u200ba president might have.<\/p>\n<p>And all\u200d of the 2 \u200dmillion federal employees have their own views on policy and are protected \u200bfrom easy \u2062dismissal by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/famed-art-institute-of-chicago-fires-all-docents-primarily-white-women-critics-charge-racism\/\" title=\"Famed Art Institute Of Chicago Fires All Docents, Primarily White Women. Critics Charge Racism.\">federal employment laws<\/a>. They have the power to hinder policy initiatives by\u2062 slow-walking projects \u200dor \u2063\u201cquiet quitting,\u201d exerting the \u2063bare minimum effort required to stay employed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the federal\u2063 bureaucracy, it\u2019s\u2063 complicated because you can&#8217;t\u200d really \u200dchange policy without having a large number of\u2064 people \u200bwho are \u2064implementing the \u2063changes. And if most of the bureaucrats hate the changes, they will be\u200b less enthusiastic,\u201d Richard J. Pierce,\u2062 a law professor at the George Washington University School of Law,\u200d told The\u2064 Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere may \u2062even be occasional cases where they try and figure out how to undermine the\u200b authority of their political boss,\u201d Mr. Pierce said. \u201cSo what you get is a\u2064 source \u200bof friction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The creators of Project 2025 see more than friction in the \u200boperation of federal agencies. They point \u200bto an embedded corps of left-leaning staffers bent on thwarting \u2062conservative policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLarge swaths of the [DOJ] have been captured by\u200c an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class\u200b and radical Left ideologues who have embedded themselves \u2064throughout\u200d its offices and components,\u201d Gene\u200c Hamilton wrote in \u201cMandate for Leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-5\">\n<h2>The\u2062 Vision<\/h2>\n<p>Project 2025 proposes a\u200d 180-day agenda with agency-specific transition plans to be\u200d implemented on the first day of \u200cthe next administration. \u2063The \u2063goal is to create \u201ca smaller,\u2064 politically accountable government that brings the American people what they vote for,\u201d Mr. \u2063Chretien said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Heritage Foundation has seen success \u2063with similar, less ambitious, initiatives in the past, according to Mr. Chretien. The group published its first \u201cMandate \u200bfor Leadership\u201d in 1981, the\u200d year President Ronald \u200dReagan\u200c took office.<\/p>\n<p>This ninth edition of the plan\u200d was crafted\u2064 to gain broad acceptance among\u2063 conservatives by including input\u200d from hundreds \u2062of political \u2063appointees, policy scholars,\u2063 and leaders in more than 70 conservative groups. The result represents\u200d a \u200dconservative consensus, according to Mr. Chretien.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause Project 2025 includes such a broad array of distinguished individuals and \u2063organizations, we will be \u200bable to say \u2063with confidence to the next conservative president that\u200c this \u2064is what the whole movement expects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:640px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"alignnone\"><figcaption>Internal\u200c Revenue Service\u2064 (IRS) building in Washington on June 28, 2023 (Madalina Vasiliu\/The Epoch Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Previous versions of &#8220;Mandate for\u200d Leadership&#8221; have\u200b gotten \u2062results, according to The Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>President \u2062Reagan acted on about \u200dhalf of\u2062 the\u200b ideas from the guide within his first year, according to the Foundation. President Trump\u2019s administration \u201crelied heavily on Heritage\u2019s \u2018Mandate&#8217; for \u200dpolicy guidance, embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage\u2019s proposals within just one year in office,\u201d the Project 2025 website states.<\/p>\n<p>Those included \u2063additional military spending, ratcheting up work requirements for\u200d welfare recipients, and extracting natural resources such as oil, gas,\u200d and coal from\u200c federal lands, the organization\u2062 says.<\/p>\n<p>The current version\u200b of the plan calls for reinstating \u201cSchedule F,\u201d President Trump\u2019s\u2063 executive order reclassifying thousands of federal\u2063 workers as \u201cat-will\u201d employees rather than as civil\u2064 servants who\u2063 enjoy legal\u2062 safeguards.<\/p>\n<p>However, the project\u2019s larger \u2064target is to replace\u200b the heads of what are usually called independent agencies such as the DOJ, the Centers for Disease Control, \u200bFederal Communications Commission (FCC), and Securities\u200d and Exchange Commission.\u200b These agencies are insulated from political \u2063influence to ensure that they act in line with\u200c the law and\u200b the best interest of the American people.<\/p>\n<p>The\u200b project\u2019s\u200d organizers \u200csee that protection as a license for unelected officials to make \u2062their own \u200bpolicy decisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnaccountable\u200b bureaucrats \u200blike Anthony Fauci should never again have such broad, unchecked power to\u200c issue health \u2018guidelines\u2019\u2062 that will certainly be the basis for federal and\u200c state mandates,\u201d the plan states.<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-5\">\n<h2>The\u2062 Limits of Executive Power<\/h2>\n<p>Key components of Project 2025 rely on the\u200b Unitary Executive Theory of constitutional law, which \u2064holds that the president has sole authority over the executive branch of government. This \u200crelatively new interpretation \u2064of presidential power would allow the sweeping changes envisioned by the project\u2019s \u2064organizers. The theory has \u200dnot been fully tested by the courts and\u2063 it has some pitfalls, according to legal\u200d experts.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThat&#8217;s not the way the Constitution is designed to operate,\u201d David M. Driesen, a\u2064 law professor at Syracuse University College of\u200b Law, told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a framework document, \u2064it doesn&#8217;t specify everything. But it does \u2062envision\u2062 that \u200bthere be mostly presidential control but also congressional influence on officials,\u201d\u2063 Mr. Driesen said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe president has big influence on the executive branch. That&#8217;s by design. But to say he has full control over\u200b it, that\u2019s that&#8217;s just inconsistent with the appointments clause and\u2064 the impeachment clause because \u2063he doesn&#8217;t completely control \u200dwho gets fired. The Congress <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President Donald Trump pledged to complete the task of &#8220;draining the swamp&#8221; by removing special interests and corrupt individuals from the government. He also aimed to simplify the process of dismissing &#8220;rogue bureaucrats&#8221; who undermine presidential policies. Some Republican contenders go further, proposing to dismantle entire federal agencies. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for instance, plans to shut down the IRS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2397,"featured_media":2026270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2026269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2397"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2026269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2026269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2026270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2026269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2026269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2026269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}