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President Trump has spent the first few weeks of his second term bulldozing through the federal bureaucracy. He says that the government and its rules are inefficient and, during his first term, got in the way of executing his agenda.
Democrats may not approve of Trump’s targets — foreign aid and consumer protection agencies — or the potential constitutional crisis he initiated when he tried to eliminate them. But some Democrats might envy the speed at which he cut through red tape. After all, liberal lawmakers have for years complained about bureaucracy that moved too slowly and rules that stifled their ambitions.
One such Democrat was Joe Biden. Toward the end of his term as president, he said his administration was too slow to roll out his infrastructure law. “Historians will talk about (how) great the impact was,” Biden told USA Today last month. “But it didn’t have any immediate impact on people’s lives.”
Similarly, Barack Obama promised “shovel-ready” projects to help revitalize the economy, but they were slow to get started. “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected,” Obama said in 2011. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has criticized his state’s troubled high-speed rail project. “I watched as a mayor and then a lieutenant governor and now governor as years became decades,” he said in 2023. “People are losing trust and confidence in our ability to build big things.”
Democrats typically run for office promising to make government help people. But Democrats have also enacted rules to improve workplaces, stop unfair business practices and protect the environment. Even when those rules work well, they impose additional requirements on new public and private projects. Today’s newsletter explains why some Democrats were starting to rethink their approach even before Trump took office.
Getting permits
Building new things in America can be very hard.
Consider clean-energy projects. These are meant to create jobs — in solar, wind, nuclear and so on — and combat climate change. But passing a law that spends money on such projects is only the first step. The companies and agencies involved have to apply for permits and show they meet regulatory standards to start construction. The government takes time to assess those applications.
