The Trump administration is making it seem as if it’s Christmas every day these days, and just recently, President Trump gave more relief to beleaguered American taxpayers: he signed an executive order abolishing seven federal agencies. The millions that these federal boondoggles would have wasted can now be put to more effective and efficient use, or even (dare one hope?) returned to overburdened taxpayers. Activist leftist judges will do everything they can to stop this and make sure that these agencies keep on confiscating the hard-earned money of long-suffering taxpayers, but if Trump gets his way, sweet relief is in the offing.
The Hill reported that Trump “on Friday signed an executive order that aims to eliminate seven federal agencies, including ones that focus on media, libraries, museums and ending homelessness.” Here, I’ll do the establishment media apparatchiks a favor and write their stories for them: “Donald Trump, who was convicted of thirty-four felonies, continued to slash programs that are vital for the survival and well-being of the American people. On Friday, he signed an executive order that trampled upon the freedom of speech by eliminating federal agencies that focus on media. He also pandered to his right-wing, rural, provincial, uneducated, and provincial followers by shuttering agencies that provided essential aid to libraries and museums. Most cruelly, he ensured that more of our nation’s poorest citizens would be unable to find help in their hour of need by eliminating agencies focused on ending homelessness.”
That’s about how the coverage will go, but of course, that is not what Trump is doing at all. According to The Hill, Trump “targeted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the parent company of Voice of America’s (VOA), as well as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, which is a think tank, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which is an agency that supports libraries, archives and museums in every state.”
These kinds of agencies have received government funding for so many years because anyone who dared to argue that they should not actually be funded was immediately accused of wanting to muzzle the media, or consign America’s children to lives of ignorance. If you oppose funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, you must be opposed to museums and libraries, right?
This insulting and condescending reductionism has for far too long been what has passed for political discourse on this issue. The counterargument has all too seldom been heard (the establishment media made sure of that): those who oppose these federal agencies don’t oppose museums or libraries; they simply don’t believe that the federal government has any mandate to be involved in such entities, or any need to be involved in them. There were museums and libraries in the United States for far longer than there was a federal agency overseeing them, and there will be long after this agency is but a dim memory.
The Hill noted that Trump “also dismantled the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which aims to prevent and end homelessness in the U.S., the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which focuses on preventing, minimizing, and resolving work stoppages and labor disputes, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which aims to expand economic opportunity for underserved communities, and the Minority Business Development Agency, which promotes growth of minority-owned businesses.”
The first of those agencies has been an abysmal, and so has become an argument for how federal involvement in anything only makes matters worse. None of these issues need the federal government to play any role in them whatsoever. They can be handled more effectively at the state or local level, or even by private agencies.
And so Trump directed that these agencies “be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” and ordered that they “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel.” Trump also “ordered the heads of each entity submit a report to the Office of Management and Budget confirming full compliance within seven days.”
Some judge may order all this to grind to a halt and demand that the agencies continue their work, whatever it is, as usual. What no judge can do, however, is explain why any of these issues require federal involvement and will be lost without it.
