Alfred Thayer Mahan
US naval strategist Mahan wasn't a big fan of blockades. He wanted to force the big battles. That's what we are getting now.
Trump’s Constitutional Cleanup
This is the heart of the matter. Everything is going to get settled in the courts.
‘It’s the truly striking class that deserves note. This is the growing list of Trump actions deliberately designed to provoke a judicial review of the legality of longstanding Washington features. Congress spent a century creating dozens of agencies that blur the boundaries between executive, legislative and judicial power, while the administrative state produced thousands of rules that diverge from congressional intent. Constitutionalists have long disputed the legality of those actions, but over time even most critics succumbed to the status quo. To see the White House revive that fight—audaciously questioning the foundations of the D.C. architecture—is remarkable.’
It’s a simple plan:
Step number one, figure out who gets stuff done.
Step number two, get them to work with you.
Step number three, fire anyone who gets in the way.
‘Leland Dudek had spent more than a decade at the Social Security Administration, including time overseeing a fraud investigation office, but was largely unknown to senior executives at the agency.
‘Just last week, in a now-deleted LinkedIn post, Dudek said that he was put on administrative leave for cooperating with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
‘“I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” he wrote in the post, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
‘Now Dudek is the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, succeeding Michelle King, who had been the agency’s acting leader before him. She stepped down over a dispute with DOGE officials’ efforts to review sensitive records, according to people familiar with the situation. King was informed in an email Sunday morning that Dudek had been elevated to acting commissioner and she decided to retire from the agency after three decades, some of the people said.’
Trump’s Executive-Power Restoration
Wilson was the original Progressive. The executive order regarding the independent agencies is an attempt to reset the power of the executive branch. The litigation is going to be something to behold.
‘The federal government includes dozens of agencies that are nominally independent of the President even though they enforce laws and exercise other executive power. This wasn’t part of the original constitutional design.
‘Such agencies took root during the Progressive Era of the early 20th century. Woodrow Wilson in particular disliked the Constitution and wanted government by bureaucratic experts shielded from political control. Thus evolved today’s government alphabet soup of the SEC, FCC, FTC, FEC, CFTC, CFPB, FERC, FDIC, the Federal Reserve, and more.
‘A century of evidence refutes Wilson’s premise, and Mr. Trump is now challenging it head-on. His argument, echoed by many modern conservative scholars, is that insulation from presidential authority runs counter to Article II’s command that the President “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” If Congress has charged such agencies with enforcing laws, then the President should be able to supervise how they do their job.’
Why Germany’s Confidence Is Shattered and Its Economy Is Kaput
It is possible to play it too safe. Bureaucracy engenders this kind of risk aversion. Culture and a position of strength made them weak.
‘‘Yet some analysts, economists and historians think Berlin mismanaged its response. The reason: conservatism—defined not as the political ideology but as the preference for the status quo over change, for reaction over action and for caution over risk.
‘This is partly the wage of success. As long as Germany’s economy was growing, brushing aside the financial crisis and the eurozone debt crisis, there was no pressure to course-correct, said historian Timothy Garton Ash, author of “Homelands,” a history of Europe in the past 50 years.
‘“Germany woke up last because they were doing best,” he said. “It’s a critique of the political, business, and, to some extent, intellectual elites because it would have been their role to look ahead and see the coming challenges.”’
Congress Has Only Itself to Blame for DOGE
Congress complains about executive branch overreach. Maybe they should have been overseeing things themselves.
Congress has the power of the purse. This power includes not only the power to approve budgetary outlays but the responsibility to ensure that the money is being spent as intended.
It’s as if DOGE is the neighbor who is cutting the lawn for that one person who refuses to take care of their front yard.
‘Despite its quasi-official status, DOGE has exposed a fundamental truth that those who follow Congress have known for a long time: it often can’t and won’t perform the level of oversight the American people rightfully expect when it comes to spending their money.
‘For decades, both parties have treated spending oversight as a talking point rather than an actual constitutional responsibility. Lawmakers of all stripes have been too distracted by partisan brawls and endless campaigns to do the unglamorous work of following the money. The result? Billions in spending that no one—especially the lawmakers—can fully explain.
‘And now, voters are beginning to look beyond Congress to reign it in. Through its own decades-long negligence over the purse strings, Congress opened the door for DOGE’s prying eyes—and Musk drove a (federally subsidized) Cybertruck right through it.’
Trump executive order requires sweeping review of federal regulations
Gird yourself for the revelations of regulations that are out of date. This will parallel the DOGE disclosures of crazy payments.
‘President Donald Trump signed yet another sweeping executive order late Wednesday that stands to dramatically curb the power of federal agencies by ordering a thorough review of all government regulations to decide which should be on the chopping block.’
Moving Beyond the Regulation/Deregulation Trap
There is a tradeoff: the friction imposed by regulation vs. the certainty of the rules firms need to follow. Private players will tolerate additional costs as long as they are reasonable and predictable.
We’re in the process of lowering regulatory costs but this is a period of tremendous uncertainty.
‘Often, these discussions are framed as a binary choice: regulation versus deregulation. Many assert that regulation stifles innovation and growth, while deregulation fosters the opposite. While there is no shortage of regulations that need reform, the regulation/deregulation dichotomy often oversimplifies the issue and can be misleading. A more constructive framing for balancing good governance and good business shifts the focus from “regulation versus deregulation” to “risk versus uncertainty.”
‘While it’s true that industry stakeholders generally push for deregulation to minimize compliance costs, there's a more nuanced reality at play. In the long run, it's the predictability and usefulness of rules, not their mere presence or absence, that drives successful investment and innovation. Businesses and investors often express frustration over arbitrary or unexpected regulatory changes—the sense of "being denied at the finish line" after substantial investments in research, development, and planning. This experience is common in areas such as licensing, permitting, intellectual property regimes, and export regulations, as well as their waivers and exceptions.
‘What firms seek, then, is not necessarily a complete absence of regulation but stability and predictability: firms are willing to live with a reasonable tradeoff between extra costs imposed by regulation in return for certainty in regulation that they can then plan and invest around. In other words, rules for innovation can be valuable—as long as those rules don’t keep changing mid-game. ‘
We’re going to find out how many rules and regulations actually accord with the law.
‘ Sec. 2. Rescinding Unlawful Regulations and Regulations That Undermine the National Interest. (a) Agency heads shall, in coordination with their DOGE Team Leads and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, initiate a process to review all regulations subject to their sole or joint jurisdiction for consistency with law and Administration policy. Within 60 days of the date of this order, agency heads shall, in consultation with the Attorney General as appropriate, identify the following classes of regulations:
(i) unconstitutional regulations and regulations that raise serious constitutional difficulties, such as exceeding the scope of the power vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution;
(ii) regulations that are based on unlawful delegations of legislative power;
(iii) regulations that are based on anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition;
(iv) regulations that implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority;
(v) regulations that impose significant costs upon private parties that are not outweighed by public benefits;
(vi) regulations that harm the national interest by significantly and unjustifiably impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives; and
(vii) regulations that impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.
(b) In conducting the review required by subsection (a) of this section, agencies shall prioritize review of those rules that satisfy the definition of “significant regulatory action” in Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993 (Regulatory Planning and Review), as amended.
(c) Within 60 days of the date of this order, agency heads shall provide to the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget a list of all regulations identified by class as listed in subsection (a) of this section.
(d) The Administrator of OIRA shall consult with agency heads to develop a Unified Regulatory Agenda that seeks to rescind or modify these regulations, as appropriate.’
The UK is snipping — rather than shredding — red tape
Even the UK wants to cut regulations.
‘Libertarians rejoice. While Elon Musk, tech entrepreneur and governmental efficiency tsar, is ripping up the tyranny of bureaucracy in the US, Britain is shuffling ahead with its own bid to cut red tape. British quangos have a tendency to breed, so trimming has bipartisan appeal; the governing Labour party’s coming audit of some 130 regulators follows multiple efforts by previous Conservative governments.’