It’s been a dizzying and disorienting two weeks in Washington, as President-elect Trump fills out his incoming administration, Congress figures out who will be in charge come next year, and everyone else wonders what 2025 will have in store for us.
There’s a lot happening. Some of it could impact CRM, and some won’t. So let’s take a look at the three big areas where Trump and Republicans are making moves – people, policies and money – and break down what matters and what is just noise.
First, the people. Trump has started announcing top staff and cabinet picks, including some eyebrow raisers, like now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as Attorney General and Robert Kennedy, Jr., for Health and Human Services Secretary.
In terms of direct impact on CRM, the most notable was Trump’s selection of North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R) as both Interior Secretary and White House “energy czar.”
What do Burgum’s dual roles mean for preservation and CRM? Burgum is reportedly close to the oil and gas industry, and as governor, he’s focused on cutting regulations. Expect him to be the face of the Trump administration’s plans to “drill, baby, drill.”
At the same time, Burgum’s been a big booster of plans to build a Presidential library to honor Teddy Roosevelt, the great conservator who established nearly 230 million acres of public lands, including five national parks and 18 national monuments. Burgum also reportedly has made engaging with Tribal nations a priority as governor.
Does that mean he will protect the Section 106 process, NAGPRA and other cultural resource laws? It’s too soon to say. The bottom line is that he, like all Cabinet secretaries, will serve at the pleasure of the president, and Trump is not likely to brook any dissent from the agencies.
That explains why Trump is aggressively exploring ways to make it easier install his loyalists in government.
First, he is pressuring the Senate to allow him to bypass the Constitution’s “advise and consent” requirements by making recess appointments. The Constitution allows the President to fill open positions requiring Senate confirmation when the Senate is in recess; this is a relic of the time when Senators could be a weeks’ horse ride away from the Capitol and a key cabinet post was suddenly empty. Nevertheless, if any of Trump’s nominees face a tough fight in the Senate to get confirmed, Senate leaders could adjourn, allowing Trump to make appointments. Under the Constitution, Trump even could direct Congress to adjourn, enabling him to make a slew of appointments.
These moves would be a sea change from how the system of checks and balances has worked over the last two centuries, and it’s not clear if Republicans will allow it to happen (after all, if the GOP does it for Trump, Democrats could do it the next time they win the White House).
More likely is Trump’s plan to convert a host of nonpartisan civil servant positions into political appointments that could be filled with Trump loyalists. Such a move will likely face court challenges, but it underscores the extent to which Trump is challenging historic precedents around the process of selecting Executive Branch personnel.
Now, the policies. Trump hasn’t rolled out too many new policy positions since the election, focused as he appears to be on personnel. ACRASphere covered some of the possible policy implications of a second Trump term in its post-election report.
But one announcement out of Mar-a-Lago has garnered lots of attention: last week, Trump tapped Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or “DOGE,” to slash federal spending and regulations. Trump promised it will deliver “A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy” by the nation’s 250th anniversary in July 2026.
The details are murky. However, we can make some educated guesses about what they’ll suggest. During his short-lived campaign, Ramaswamy proposed eliminating the Education Department, the FBI and the IRS by executive order while cutting the federal workforce by 75 percent. For his part, Musk suggested he could eliminate 99 out of the 438 federal agencies that currently exist.
It will be difficult, if not impossible, for Trump to act on these ideas without congressional approval. And while many Republicans share the desire to shrink government, they also know that their constituents back home rely on many of these programs. The DOGE may very well go the way of other ill-fated government reform commissions.
Trump will likely have more success in trimming specific regulations, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Loper Bright decision giving courts more leeway to overturn agency regulations that go beyond what Congress enacted in law. While the Musk and Ramaswamy “Department” might get the headlines, the real work in supporting cultural heritage policy will happen where it always does – in the mundane federal rulemaking process.
That brings us to the money. Musk has said that he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But saying and doing are two different things.
The federal government spends about $6.5 trillion per year (see chart, below). Of that, nearly $1 trillion goes to interest payments on the national debt, which the government can’t renege on. Another $3.9 billion is for entitlement programs, mainly Social Security and Medicare, which Trump promised not to touch. Then there is $800 billion for defense, an amount many Republicans want to increase.
That leaves about $900 billion for the alphabet soup of programs we tend to think of when we think about the government: NASA, the FBI, highway funding, Pell Grants, embassies, National Parks and the like. (Note that the entire annual budget of the Interior Department is that little block in the lower right corner.)
Federal Spending, FY 2024
In other words, you could eliminate every non-defense program in the federal government and be only halfway to Elon Musk’s goal. Putting aside the enormous ramifications for the country if that were to happen, the odds of Congress – even one that wants to cut spending – agreeing to wipe out whole swaths of government when they have to face the voters in two years are low.
Could Trump act unilaterally and cut trillions of dollars without Congress? Not under current law, which limits a president’s ability to refuse to spend money Congress has appropriated. But some of Trump’s advisers have called on him to challenge the law in the courts, or test it by refusing to spend money.
Nobody knows how that will play out. But while earth-shattering reductions in the federal budget are unlikely, expect the new Congress and White House to take other steps to rein in what they see as out-of-control spending.
That includes funds approved by the current Congress and signed into law by President Biden. The bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act provided billions in dollars in new infrastructure spending. It is likely the new Congress will try to claw back some of that money, especially on projects that have not commenced. That’s why the Biden administration is rushing to get as much money out the door as possible before January 20.
In short, it’s too early to tell whether Donald Trump’s plans to remake the government in his image will come to fruition. Even if they don’t, important changes in personnel, policy and funding may be around the corner. Stay tuned to ACRASphere to keep updated.
And don’t forget to join us Thursday, December 5, at 2:00pm EST for Election 2024: What it Means for CRM.
This webinar will explore the potential changes to the legislative and regulatory environments, how your firm may be affected, and ways that ACRA will continue speaking up for the industry.
The webinar is FREE for ACRA members and available to non-members for $20. Spaces are limited – register now to reserve your spot.