On the off chance you’ve been living under a rock, let’s run down what’s happened since Monday. Who knows what bomb has gone off since this little essay has gone to press? But here are yesterday’s lows. In the current government, there really aren’t a lot of highs.
The President’s former campaign manager was found guilty on eight charges of financial fraud. The jury hung on the other 10 charges.
The President’s long-time lawyer pleaded guilty to an assortment of crimes. Some of which clearly implicate the President and brings up the real possibility that the question of whether a sitting President can be indicted will go before the Supreme Court.
The White House counsel (not to be confused with the President’s personal attorney) has spoken for many hours with the Special Counsel.
Omarosa has tapes.
Uh oh.
The Founding Fathers Would Approve of Draining the Government Swamp
Trump’s most appealing call to action during the 2106 campaign, the one that caught the attention of the unicorn voters (nominally Republican college-educated women and independents) was “Drain the Swamp”–an idea that is actually more in line with what the Founding Fathers had envisioned than you might think.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 45
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.”
Or, as the great George Will put it a couple of centuries later, the job of the Federal government is to defend our shores, print money, and deliver the mail.
At any rate, the United States Federal government has ballooned exponentially beyond the Founding Father’s wildest expectations. M12juost of the government is squarely in the middle of a literal and figurative swamp. The reality is that the US government is too much a global force to shrink in any meaningful way. But to move government agencies to different parts of the country is a good start. This would clear out some of the more untidy aspects of our centralized government.
Consider the recent scandals among the Cabinet that have plagued the Administration. Secretaries new to Washington with no real accountability to anyone, getting away with all manner of undisciplined spending at best and creating thoroughly bizarre policy at worst. It’s like the K Street lobbyists took over their brains and good people. New to the ways of Washington, let the twin gospels of money and influence inform all their decisions.
Moving Government Agencies
Now assume that government agencies were headquartered all across the country, in regions that make geographic sense. Suppose the Interior Department is somewhere in the Midwest, as that’s the literal interior of the country. Assistant secretaries and staffers live in the region, so have a real stake in the policies implemented by the Department. If you’re an undersecretary living in suburban Maryland, policy changes to grazing on public lands is a fairly abstract concept. If your local economy depends on pristine rivers and lands for hunting and fishing tourism, you see the effects of such a policy in the ground level, and are able to better advocate for or against it– a better understanding of policy leads to better policy.
There’s no guarantee that decentralized agencies would not be subject to bad policy decisions and corruption. But the good people of Omaha would take a dim view of Washington shenanigans if they happened in their backyard.
Yes, Washington is a swamp, but it can be drained-the Rule 72 Initiative proposes changing the 1947 law that demands all government agencies be headquartered in the District of Columbia. Keeping agencies closer to their constituents, creating jobs and economic development in other parts of the country, and lower costs of doing business (DC is one of highest real estate markets in the country) are all good things, and the benefits of moving agencies far outweigh the negatives.
Our government isn’t perfect. Right now it appears to be not the shining city on the hill, but one more banana farm. Moving Federal agencies into various parts of the country won’t solve all the problems. But it’s a good start towards accountability and civility.
The Rule 72 Initiative is hard at work to repeal the law (Rule 72) that prohibits moving functions of the federal government away from Washington, D.C. If these ideas sound like a positive step towards truly draining the swamp, here are some ways to get involved:
