Elimination of aid to Family Planning, end of subsidies to public radio and television, accused of being a bastion of left-wing activism, and elimination of 1.5 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) in subsidies to organizations international agreements not authorized by Congress: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and his partner, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, gave a foretaste of their plans to slash federal spending.
In a long column published Wednesday, November 20 in the Wall Street Journalthey make their methodical speech to explain how they intend to slim down the federal state, as President-elect Donald Trump asked them to do, by appointing them to head a ministry of “governmental efficiency”.
The text reveals a thoughtful plan of attack, based on the latest case law of the Supreme Court favorable to a minimal State. Above all, it aims to avoid going through Congress, which has, in theory, most of the powers over the federal budget. “Our compass for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with an emphasis on two major Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s term”write the two businessmen, who cite two decisions that have severely limited the power of federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Teleworking of civil servants in the viewfinder
The Court's conservative justices have limited the agencies' ability to adapt their rules to changes in the world – for example, global warming, not envisioned when the EPA was created in the early 1970s – and to interpret their own regulations. on behalf of the federal courts. “These decisions suggest that many current federal regulations exceed the authority granted by Congress under the law”accuse MM. Musk and Ramaswamy, who plan to quickly present a list of abusive regulations “to President Trump, who may, by decree, immediately suspend their application and launch the process of review and cancellation”.
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The measure will reduce bureaucracy and make it possible to cut the number of federal civil servants. “The number of federal employees to be eliminated should be at least proportional to the number of federal regulations canceled”they write. Both men recognize that federal employee status must protect “against political reprisals” but they argue that “the law authorizes “workforce reductions” that do not target specific employees”.
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