Are President Trump’s – and the DOGE team’s – efforts to limit government, his determination to convert consent in November into smaller government – legitimate? Liberal judges fume over Trump’s second victory, but the obvious answer is yes. On what authority? Our Founders’ authority.
First, consider the principles on which our government, including the presidency, was founded. We know a great deal about what our Founders thought because they – those they respected – told us.
Wrote Thomas Jefferson, who penned our Declaration, “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government.” Who are the governed? We are the governed. What counts as consent? An uncontested, uncontestable election victory, like Trump’s.
Okay, but is smaller government a legitimate objective for our consent? Jefferson: “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement” is the best government. So, yes.
Are Trump’s cuts in line with our Founders’ idea of a limited and “frugal” government, allowing us “free to regulate” our “own pursuits of industry and improvement?” How can anyone doubt it?
History is clear. Between 1789 and 1849, the first 60 years of American statehood, we collected 1.16 billion in taxes and spent 1.09 billion, so stayed limited. Our leaders ran a tight ship, with a surplus.
By 1901, after the Civil War, War of 1812, and War Department, Theodore Roosevelt sent the “Great White Fleet” around the world to deter wars, with a total budget of .588 billion. Half a billion dollars fund the government, with no debt and a surplus.
Wars are always expensive. By 1918, after WW, when America saved Europe, America was in shock. We had collected 3.65 billion but spent 12.67 billion. But the debt was a disgrace. Americans wanted the spending down. By 1924, taxes were 3.9 billion, spending 2.9 billion. We had a billion in surplus.
Wars again … In 1941, the year we got attacked by Japan, tax receipts were eight billion, spending 13.6 billion. The next five years things went haywire – to win WWII, which we did.
We saved Europe again but at a high cost. We lost half a million boys and were again in debt. Between 1942 and 1946, the government ran deficits of 21 billion, then 56, 49, 49, and 17. Yet in 1947, trying to keep government limited, we had a surplus again – of 2.8 billion.
Skipping ahead, the government hit 100 billion in 1965, and 209 billion in 1974 – as Johnson’s “Great Society” and Vietnam War met Mideast oil shocks. By 1980, under Jimmy Carter, the size of the government hit 477 billion, deficit 73 billion.
In 1995, under Bill Clinton, the government hit 1.3 trillion, a deficit of 226 billion. So, the government was roughly 100 times the cost in 1941. In 54 years, it grew 100-fold. By 2009, with more wars and social spending, spending was three trillion annually, a deficit of a whopping half that number. Federal debt was piling up. By 2021, the cost of government was 5.8 trillion, 10,000 times our 1901 government.
And by 2021, we were at 5.8 trillion annually, 6.5 trillion in 2024 after a whopping 4.6 trillion in extra federal spending under Biden, government anything but limited.
So, now we come to today. A far cry from surpluses, Trump inherited a 36 trillion dollar debt, outlays of trillions for 2000 federal agencies, even auditors overwhelmed, unclear how much is spent. Does that sound like a “wise and frugal” government, one that is limited and solvent?
So, would the Founders like what Trump is doing, trying to re-limit government, reign in the spending and taxing, runaway debt and deficits, and regain control over wild horses?
Yes, I think so. Wrote James Madison, Father of our Constitution, “It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectively constrained from passing the limits assigned to it.”
Finally, we have Lord Acton (1834-1902), who seems to reflect the Founders’ wisdom, like his revolutionary era countryman Edmund Burke. Wrote Acton, “Liberty consists in the division of power, absolutism in the concentration of power …Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is limited.”
But hear Acton on bureaucracy’s dangers. “Bureaucracy is undoubtedly the weapon and sign of a despotic government, in as much as it gives whatever government it serves despotic power.”
So, now, as President Trump and DOGE cut uncontrolled, unconstrained, unaccountable bureaucracy, would the Founders not be happy? One can only imagine how they would be. Carry on.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
Read the full article here
