We Need a New Washington
Steve McKee /
Months before the November election, a research study with which I was involved asked respondents which of 10 historical presidents they wished were in the Oval Office today.
To prevent “recency” bias, we kept the list to former presidents whose legacies are largely defined: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy.
Lincoln topped the list by a significant margin. When we probed for why, most of the answers had to do with Lincoln’s steady hand in preserving the republic through a time of great division. In a country that once again is divided, that’s the medicine for which many Americans of all political persuasions are reaching.
Given those findings, I find President-elect Donald Trump’s recent magnanimity toward his political enemies encouraging. I don’t know whether it’s truly “with malice toward none,” but Trump repeatedly has stated his desire to be judged based on results rather than retribution. That’s a hopeful sign.
Although I understand the majority’s reasoning in choosing Lincoln, I think my instincts would have been to go with the president who came in second in our poll: George Washington. I’ve long thought another Washington is what we need.
The reason? His rejection of the predations of power. At the end of the Revolutionary War, Washington had the leverage and prestige to anoint himself America’s monarch, but refused to do so. When Washington resigned his military commission, King George III called him “the greatest man in the world.”
And as the only president twice unanimously elected by the Electoral College, Washington could have served for life. He instead chose to step down after two terms and return to Virginia and his beloved Mount Vernon.
Now our 47th president has the unique opportunity to emulate the first. Normally, new presidents are both learning on the job and preoccupied with earning a second term, which limit the aggressiveness with which they can pursue their agendas. Then, not far into their second terms, they become lame ducks and lack the political power to get much done.
Having already served one term as president, however, Trump is getting off to a running start. And having once again earned the imprimatur of the American people who understand who he is and what he intends to accomplish, he has his mandate. Unable to run again, he can think in historical terms.
Washington could be Trump’s model as he exercises the duly elected powers of the executive branch to dismantle its unconstitutional elements and unwind the administrative state.
There’s much that can be done. Twenty-five years ago, noted economist Milton Friedman matter-of-factly outlined 11 Cabinet-level departments that should go: Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. (There was no Department of Homeland Security at the time, but we can guess what Friedman would have said about that.)
To be fair, Friedman argued that some functions of these eliminated government departments, such as stewarding the nuclear stockpile and taking care of veterans, should be maintained.
Beyond that, we know that expensive entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid can’t just be “undone.” But they can, and must, be reformed.
The idea of putting some two-thirds of the executive branch on the chopping block sounds shocking to those of us who’ve grown up in the era of Big Government. And some would say we can’t possibly go that far—these departments are too big, too deeply ingrained in our way of life, and employ too many people to be unraveled.
I say that’s why they must be unraveled, to tame the federal Leviathan that has become as dangerous to liberty as it is economically unproductive.
That’s not to say the new Trump administration should be cavalier about how it goes about the task, which is why, for example, generous severance packages are being mentioned for employees displaced by the work of Trump’s advisory commission—the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Nor should the second Trump administration be unrealistic about the unanticipated consequences resulting from a dramatic reduction in the size and scope of the federal government.
But there’s nothing that says problems such as poverty, policing, and public health must be handled at the federal level. In fact, the Constitution reserves those powers to the states or the people.
To be sure, any unwinding of this giant ball of yarn must be handled wisely and deliberately, and there’s room for plenty of debate regarding what stays and what goes.
But the more the federal government can be returned to the limits the Founders intended (and the American people ratified), the more we will return self-governance to the states, to the cities, and to the people, where it belongs.
Progressivism has gotten us into quite a mess over the past hundred years, and it’s likely to require a decade or more of conservative victories to return us anywhere close to first things.
However, if our new president emulates the example of George Washington and seeks a similar legacy, he can retire to his beloved Mar-a-Lago when his work is done—knowing that America will thrive for another 250 years.
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