Deconstructing the Administrative State

This work puts the current president's efforts to deconstruct the administrative state (i.e., the agencies, people, and processes of the executive establishment) into context. Analogous to their neglect of the nation's physical infrastructure, I explain why Congress and the president rarely have incentives to tend to the care and feeding of the departments and agencies of government, particularly the parts that provide few direct benefits to key electoral interests. I describe the health of the administrative state before Trump's presidency to illustrate the cumulative effect of these incentives. I then turn to reviewing the Trump administration's actions to deconstruct the administrative state. I illustrate how the president's approach is consistent with the actions of previous presidents and how he departs, notably positioning himself as president but not chief executive. I conclude with implications for the quality of governance in the United States and some modest proposals for reform.