Everyone Loves a Winner
A populist who can execute is a political unicorn. Neither is supposed to exist.
The Neat Trick That Made Javier Milei a Success
A populist who executes is a political success.
That’s the real threat to the establishment in all countries seeking to deregulate.
‘This faith-based initiative is fueled by an unspoken, perhaps even unacknowledged, desire to see foreign leaders who reject Eurocratic center-leftism slink away from public life, defeated and unloved. His downfall would validate progressive presumptions about how the world should work. Unfortunately for the international left, Milei has not lived down to those expectations. “Javier Milei has the 2nd highest approval rating of all world leaders according to Morning Consult,” the Manhattan Institute’s Daniel Di Martino observed this week. At 61 percent approval among Argentinians, Milei trails only India’s Narendra Modi when it comes to being popular among his constituents.
‘What explains Milei’s success? Nothing especially remarkable. The Argentinian leader ran for the presidency promising to implement libertarian economic prescriptions to cut public spending, unshackle the private economy, and boost supplies to meet demand (thus, putting downward pressure on inflation). He didn’t smuggle into the presidency a suite of policy preferences entirely unrelated to the economic reforms on which he ran. Instead, he focused on delivering reduced regulatory burdens, unlocking Argentina’s entrepreneurial potential, and delivering prosperity that would reduce poverty and inflation. That’s what he did.’
In Argentina, a Lighthouse for the Hemisphere
The scale of what they have done in Argentina boggles the brain. Note there is also a decrease in government corruption. Shrinking the government has reduced the surface area for embezzlement or bribe-taking.
‘Under Milei, monthly inflation fell from 25.5 percent last December to just 2.4 percent in February, according to Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC). The poverty rate dropped nearly 15 percent in the second half of 2024 to 38.1 percent last December. Milei has already slashed some 30,000 government jobs and plans to cut 70,000 in total. He shrank the number of government ministries from 18 to nine, consolidating some and eliminating others altogether. The Cato Institute found that he made some 672 regulatory reforms over his first year in office, eliminating 331 regulations and modifying 341 others. (In this, he set a precedent for Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk. Milei visited with Musk at a Tesla factory in Texas last April, and Musk said in November that Milei had made “impressive progress.”) A year after taking office, Milei announced in December 2024 that the national budget deficit had been reduced to zero for the first time in more than 100 years. Annual inflation has dropped from 289 to 100 percent and is projected to drop to 26 percent by the end of the year. In 2024, Argentine stocks yielded yearly returns of 66 percent, by far the highest of any country in the world.’
President Trump’s First 100 Days of Deregulation
Is this fast enough?
‘As of early May, President Trump has signed 143 executive orders, including those rescinding executive orders issued by President Biden, imposing limitations on the use of DEI programs, withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization, and reinforcing rights under the Second Amendment. He has revoked the security clearances for lawyers at select law firms and fired numerous agency officials and government employees, including inspectors general overseeing audits at more than half a dozen major departments. He has empowered Elon Musk to spearhead efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency, which has halted or canceled payments on numerous government contracts and effectively hollowed out certain government agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As of May 2025, at least 135 court rulings have halted Administration action.
‘In the domain of regulatory policy, the Administration has taken numerous government-wide actions to pursue its policy objectives. These actions have included:
Executive Order 14,192 calling for agencies to identify at least 10 existing regulations or guidance documents to be revoked for every new one to be added;
Executive Order 14,215 applying the White House regulatory review process to independent agencies; and
Executive Order 14,219 calling on agencies to revisit their statutory authorizations of existing regulations.’
If true, this means that political parties are funneling public money into opaque political organizations.
‘It’s money laundering “So it turns out 7,000 politically connected NGOs are receiving 90% of all taxpayer money going to nonprofits. Roughly $300 billion in government money flows through nonprofits every year with zero transparency with regard to where that money goes.” “The American people deserve access to the books of any entity that takes government money, and all information about how that money is used and the communications around it need to be considered public record. That's our money, and these NGOs need to start answering to us.”’
Wow. I mean, just, wow.
‘Treasury Secretary Bessent: Over 500 million payments made in 2024 were untraceable back to an appropriations. The scale of this corruption and fraud is incomprehensible’
Government is big and complex for a reason
At what point does government complexity become politically and practically intractable?
When it’s too complex, regulatory conflict and bureaucratic sclerosis inhibit effectiveness. And when it is opaque or unaccountable, the people will push back.
If we’re not there already, are we close?
‘But critics have a point when they complain that the bureaucracy lacks accountability. Much of the way that citizens interface with government is in the form of rules and regulations, and the people who write and enforce the rules can seem insulated from public oversight. It’s also true that the bureaucracy is quite large, although that’s not a new situation. The federal workforce, currently a little over 2 million people, is slightly smaller than 50 years ago, even though the U.S. population has grown by two-thirds.’
Trump tightens control of independent agency overseeing nuclear safety
The notion of an independent agency is anathema to those who think there are only three branches of American government.
‘The Trump administration has tightened its control over the independent agency responsible for overseeing America's nuclear reactors, and it is considering an executive order that could further erode its autonomy, two U.S. officials who declined to speak publicly because they feared retribution told NPR.
‘Going forward, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must send new rules regarding reactor safety to the White House, where they will be reviewed and possibly edited. That is a radical departure for the watchdog agency, which historically has been among the most independent in the government. The new procedures for White House review have been in the works for months, but they were just recently finalized and are now in full effect.’
Why I’m backing a Ministry for Regulation
Who watches the watchmen?
‘Despite some perfunctory prior review of regulatory proposals (often ignored by politicians) there has been no systematic ongoing performance monitoring or reassessment. Patch protection, vested interest capture and bureaucratic inertia have simply added to the quantity of regulation with limited and diminishing quality.’
GOP may be closer than ever to enacting a massive rule-busting bill
Letting Congress become a “gatekeeper” for major rule changes sounds like a good idea.
‘Conservative Republicans have spent more than a decade working toward a wholesale rollback of federal regulations — and now they think they have the legislative battle plan to make it happen.
‘Advocates of the rule-shredding proposal are seeking to give their legislation a coveted spot in the GOP’s party-line energy, tax and border security megabill, a maneuver that would defuse the filibuster threat that has repeatedly thwarted their dreams. They say they have spent the better part of the past year crafting ways to ensure their latest iteration can pass muster in the Senate.’
Sisyphean task.
‘"The question is, will we have the political courage to execute on that and right-size the bloated bureaucracy, as was reflected in the president's budget, and deal with this wartime-level debt, $2 trillion in annual deficit spending that's going to double, and interest payments that exceed not only national defense, but Medicare payments," said Arrington, who is chair of the House Budget Committee.’
‘While US regulators are pivoting away from climate change as a material financial risk, the private sector and local governments are taking the lead on climate reporting. The US Green Building Council’s LEED v5, New York City’s Local Law 97, Boston’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO), and Denver’s “Energize Denver” are a few key state and industry-led initiatives that are maintaining momentum on climate action and risk management amidst federal regulatory uncertainty.'