The Year of Breaking Things

Often we have spoken about the dangers of ossification to bureaucracy, following Joseph Schumpeter. The usual way this gets solved is through competition, where new and more agile firms break off pieces of the business of giants like IBM. But it turns out there's another way:
The press is doing a good job of telling us what he accomplished in 2017. But they keep leaving out all the stuff he broke that probably needed to be broken. I’ll fix that for you here.

GOP – Trump broke the GOP and reconstructed it along his terms, successfully it seems.

DNC – The DNC has no charismatic leader, no game plan, and little money.

Clinton Dynasty – Done

Bush Dynasty – Done

Mainstream Media – The public learned that news coverage is based on bias as much as fact.

NFL – Ratings down, attendance down.

FBI (leadership) – The FBI as a whole is still highly credible, but the leadership is not.

Pundits – Nearly all the pundits were wrong about Trump’s nomination, election, and successful (by Republican standards) first year.

Government Regulations – For good or bad, we have fewer regulations now.

Hollywood – Big stars are alienating 40% of their potential audience whenever they take time off from groping.

North Korea – They used to have a pathetic but functioning economy. That situation is changing rapidly.

ISIS – Remember ISIS? They used to be a big deal.

TPP – Pulled out

Paris Climate Accord – Pulled out
That's a good point. What else needs to be broken for the good of us all?

6 comments:

E Hines said...

1) Federal (re)transfers of the money of one State's citizens to the governments of other States.
2) Federal transfers of one citizen's money from the opportunity of saving for his own/his own parents' future retirement to another current retiree.
3) Federal transfers of one citizen's money from the opportunity of saving for his own/his own parents' future medical expenses to another current retiree's current medical expenses
4) Obamacare--the defunding of one aspect of it, while a critical step forward, leaves the thing on the law books. It's much easier for a subsequent Congress to re-fund the thing than to enact the thing from scratch. The thing needs to be repealed in its entirety, not just completely defunded.
5) DoJ. We got along for 100 years without one; the only reason we have one now is the plethora of Federal laws.
6) That long list of Federal laws.
7) The use of the tax code for social engineering.

8) Not an additional breakage, but a repair job: the Supreme Court and the lower tiers of our judiciary to adherence to the Constitution and to the laws as written, not "interpretation" according to a judge's perception of current society's current needs.

Eric Hines

Texan99 said...

(1) Affirmative action.

(2) Any federal role in the public schools.

douglas said...

What a rebuttal to the 'do-something'ism that afflicts politicians and activists as a class.

Texan99 said...

From Wolf Howling at Bookworm Room:

"Trump needs to lean on Congress to pass the REINS Act, in essence giving Congress the right to examine and vote upon any regulation as if it were a duly introduced bill, and requiring that Congress do so for any regulations that carry a significant price tag, either in the form of money the government spends or economic burdens businesses and individuals must bear.

"Our Congresscritters need to be forced to do their jobs. Too often, they are happy to allow regulatory agencies to make the hard decisions so that they do not have to vote on them. And while the House did its part in passing the REINS Act, it is today dying in a Senate Committee. If Trump is to truly leave an imprint on government, he needs to force the Senate’s hand on this, or his legacy will only be as long as Obama’s is turning out to be."

E Hines said...

I'd rather they simply rescinded the original delegation bills--Chevron deference and the supposedly weaker (in fact, simply more pernicious) Skidmore deference are judicial outcomes of COngressional delegations--and re-enacted delegation along the lines of all regulations enacted by Executive Branch entities expire in [5] years unless explicitly renewed [for 3 years] by Congress--not the regulating agency.

That would have Congressmen really doing their jobs, rather than just another way to wish their responsibilities off onto others. Congress already has the right to examine and vote upon--and rescind--any regulation--that's called Oversight, and Legislation.

Eric Hines

Ymarsakar said...

More stuff needs to be burned down. This isn't even a camp fire yet.