In the first six months, a lot of things have changed dramatically.
The Myth of Trump’s Do-Nothing Presidency
Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump’s detractors portray him as a do-nothing president with no big wins on issues such as health care, taxes and infrastructure.
That may be true if the benchmark is legislation, but that is an incomplete benchmark. To gauge a president’s impact you have to go beyond the laws he signs to the vast authority he wields through departments and agencies that apply the law. On that score, Mr. Trump is on track to do a lot. On finance, the internet, immigration and drugs, to name just a few issues, Trump appointees have begun nudging the economy and the country in a more conservative, pro-business direction. Whether that is good or bad is to a great extent in the eye of the beholder. What isn’t debatable is that the imperial presidency, after expanding under Barack Obama, remains just as formidable under Mr. Trump.
In recent weeks headlines have been dominated by the Senate’s stop-start efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Away from this drama, Mr. Trump’s Labor Department moved to undo Mr. Obama’s expansion of eligibility for overtime pay, financial regulators dropped efforts to tighten restrictions on banker pay and the Interior Department signaled it would rescind proposed rules on oil and gas fracking on federal land. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump announced transgender individuals couldn’t serve in the military, reversing an Obama-era decision.
In Mr. Trump’s first six months, rule-making has changed dramatically. The latest update on regulatory actions released last week by the White House Office of Management and Budget contained 1,731 preliminary, proposed or final rules, down 40% from its peak under Mr. Obama in 2011 and a 17-year low, according to Sofie Miller of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center. Many actions taken under Mr. Trump are actually reversals of earlier rules. Ms. Miller says of 66 completed actions at the Environmental Protection Agency, a third were rule withdrawals.
This may not yet meet Mr. Trump’s promise to repeal two rules for every new rule written, and indeed, agencies may find they are often legally compelled to have a rule whether they like it or not.
Nonetheless, the shift is clear. Deciding not to act can be just as consequential as deciding to act, given the discretion presidents have in how they enforce existing laws. Mr. Obama, for example, chose to not deport some classes of illegal immigrants. Mr. Trump’s playbook is similar. His appointees have signaled they will use the discretion allowed under the sweeping Dodd-Frank postcrisis regulatory overhaul to loosen the reins on finance. Keith Noreika, the acting comptroller of the currency, has suggested he may reinterpret the “Volcker rule” prohibition on proprietary trading to make it less onerous.
Mr. Trump has been criticized for how few officials have been confirmed to key jobs. Time will take care of that, and in the meantime, understaffed agencies can still get plenty done. The Federal Communications Commission is moving quickly to undo the Obama-era decision to regulate internet service providers like utilities even though two of the commission’s five seats are vacant.
Mr. Trump may be distracted with investigations into his campaign’s links to Russia or cable news, but that really doesn’t matter to regulators who have enormous freedom to act without any input from the White House. A shift in the political winds can also prompt agency staff, companies and individuals to fall in line. Amicus Therapeutics, a biotech company, recently applied for approval of a drug treating a rare genetic disorder without the additional clinical trial the Food and Drug Administration had previously demanded, a sign the agency’s new commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, is pushing faster approvals.
Now that the Department of Homeland Security is prioritizing deportation, far fewer illegal immigrants are attempting to enter the U.S., judging by reduced apprehensions at the Southwest border.
There are of course real-life limits to executive authority. Mr. Trump was ready to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement until other countries and companies persuaded him that would be rash.
And there are still the courts. Mr. Obama’s sweeping limits on power-plant carbon-dioxide emissions and his overtime pay rule were both halted by courts, as was Mr. Trump’s initial ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries. But courts generally defer to regulators under a 1984 Supreme Court precedent called “Chevron deference.”
Even liberal justices may be reluctant to challenge presidential prerogative, as the Supreme Court signaled with a unanimous preliminary decision upholding parts of the travel ban. Liberals who applauded Mr. Obama’s exercise of presidential prerogative will have little grounds to protest when Mr. Trump does the same.
Of course, the fruits of Mr. Trump’s presidential actions, like Mr. Obama’s, could be swept away as soon as another president takes office. But for the time being, don’t underestimate how much a president can shape the economy with no input at all from Congress.
