Can he do that? How Trump could try to break the federal government
President Donald Trump’s picks to lead the next administration are talking about abolishing entire agencies and firing tens of thousands of federal workers at a time.
But can his administration actually do all that?
Experts believe Trump can get much further on upending the government system this go-around compared to his first term — in part because the typical checks and balances are expected to lean in his favor.
Next year, the House and Senate are on track to fall under Republican control. Trump also got 226 federal judges and three Supreme Court justices confirmed while he was in office last time — giving his ideas a sympathetic ear in the courts when he gets sued.
With that in mind, here’s a look at how Trump could try to “break” the federal government:
A president can’t really delete entire agencies, but he could take a page from Nixon to try to starve them
Elon Musk, who Trump has picked to co-lead the new outside-of-government “Department of Government Efficiency,” has said he wants to cut $2 trillion of the $7 trillion in annual federal spending. His partner, Vivek Ramaswamy, told Fox News that they would achieve this through “mass reductions” and that some governmental agencies may be “deleted outright.”
The idea seems far-fetched at first because federal agencies are established by federal law. The Department of Education, for example, was created by a 1979 passed by Congress signed by President Jimmy Carter.
Congress would need to pass new legislation to erase or significantly reform the Education Department — an uphill battle even with a Republican-led Congress.
Enter the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. For much of the country’s existence, presidents could, in theory, ignore spending money appropriated by Congress.
President Richard Nixon used the tactic of sitting on — or impounding — federal money, essentially leaving funds untouched in U.S. Treasury accounts when he thought the spending was wasteful.
Democrats responded in 1974 by passing a law that requires a president to spend federal money the way Congress intended.
In a campaign video posted last year, Trump said he would challenge the Impoundment Control Act. It’s possible too that he could deem the law unconstitutional and try to ignore it — inviting legal challenges that could take years to resolve. [Continue reading…]