OPINION:
It has been a busy couple of weeks.
President Trump, or someone at the Office of Management and Budget, froze federal grants, which apparently touch a bunch of things that the current regime likes and a bunch of things it doesn’t. But it doesn’t really matter because at least two separate courts have ordered the cash to keep flowing. Yet, apparently, in some circumstances, the cash remains frozen.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has either folded or not, depending on which administration official is talking. We may be, but we probably aren’t, going to launch a trade war against Canada and Mexico. We may or may not be taking on Gaza as a redevelopment project.
The Office of Personnel Management may or may not have legally offered more than 2 million federal workers a buyout or an early retirement. That, too, is unclear at the moment.
One clear thing is that a little more than a quarter of all federal spending is discretionary, and about half that is defense spending. We can reduce the number of federal bureaucrats, but eventually, the team over at the Department of Government Efficiency is going to have to address the reality that the real money in the federal government is in transfer payments.
The other clear thing is that precedents matter. Everyone on the right loves the idea of a rich dude and his geeky sidekicks wandering through the federal government, finding people to fire. But what is going to happen the next time a Democrat is president? They are probably going to have rich dudes and their geeky sidekicks wandering around the federal government trying to figure out new and different ways to damage American companies and American workers.
Remember that as recently as 2020, we had a rich dude and his geeky sidekicks wandering around, seemingly trying to alter election outcomes. That effort was, appropriately, not greeted with universal acclaim.
What happens when the next president wants to take the West Bank and hand it back to Jordan? Or the president after that wants to take over Yemen and present it to the Saudis? At what point does it stop?
In the category of precedents mattering, the president has, through his political power and force of personality, broken the confirmation process and probably diminished the Senate. He pulled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth across the finish line and seems prepared to do the same for Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director nominee Kash Patel.
Mr. Trump’s march through the Senate has been impressive, and it is certainly the most awesome display of raw political power in the United States in living memory. But I’m not sure it set a good precedent concerning the quality of nominees or the emotional sturdiness of the U.S. Senate.
It is unclear whether the voters who supported Mr. Trump because of his economic record and his willingness to tackle immigration will be all that excited to take over Gaza, Greenland or even Panama. In all fairness, it is also unclear whether Mr. Trump is serious about controlling any of those places.
At some point, the American people expect, or at least hope for, basic competence. They also expect caution in the setting of precedents.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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