Make Government Small Again
By Steve McKee via The Daily Signal | January 27, 2025
“First, we’re gonna cut it off, and then we’re gonna kill it.” With that brief, bold statement describing what was about to happen to the Iraqi army at the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell conveyed to the American people that the United States had learned the lessons of Vietnam.
Those under his command had a well-defined mission and were going to execute it, quickly and efficiently. It was a memorable turn of phrase made more powerful by the damage the American psyche had suffered in the post-Vietnam era.
While history is now questioning the geopolitical events that war set in motion, unquestioned is the dispatch with which Gens. Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf trounced the Iraqi army and its once-fearsome Republican Guard.
Now that we are in the post-Obama/Biden era, I suggest a reprise of that statement to address modern damages not only to the American psyche, but to American liberty. This time the enemy is within—not any individual or group of people, but the invasive and insidious bureaucracy that is the administrative state.
First, we need to cut it off, then we need to kill it.
Not everything, of course, must go. As the Founders so eloquently articulated, there are necessary and appropriate duties of federal government. But its role has been so expanded and abused over the past 100 years that James Madison would hardly recognize it.
We have a new president, a new Congress, and a new start, and it’s comforting to know that sensible minds are back in charge. Nearly 200 Day One executive orders were a great start to cutting off the administrative state, and there is no doubt there’s more executive action to come.
But killing its excesses will require legislation. The Department of Government Efficiency might be wildly successful in trimming the federal workforce, but unless the president and Congress institutionalize change, millions of federal workers can one day be hired right back, and America will continue down the road to bankruptcy, both moral and financial.
How frustrating has it been over the past few years watching hearing after hearing as congressional committees chase down the misdeeds of the IRS, the FBI, the FDA, and other three-letter agencies, only to see nothing come of them?
We don’t need more hearings in Congress, we need more doings—not in pursuit of retribution (though justice must be served where called for), but restoration.
The president and his allies in Congress must use every tool at their disposal to rein in the federal government’s overreach. To release power (and money) back to states and municipalities, where government is closer to the people. And they must do it with dispatch, so the American people can begin to see the results and elect more reformers to both the House and the Senate in the 2026 midterms.
The effort will have to begin with executive orders and reconciliation bills, but it mustn’t stop there.
It’s not enough that the new administration is empowered to pursue its short-term ends, no matter how good and necessary they are.
President Donald Trump’s term will end on Jan. 20, 2029, and even if conservatives can retain the presidency for four, eight, or more years after that, the pendulum will one day swing back to the left. When it does, leftists will do what they’ve been doing for a century, twisting the ratchet of government steadily toward statism.
Yes, we need to cut it off, but if we’re going to kill it, we need lasting solutions. That’s the challenge now facing the conservative movement—to be neither cocky nor content with what we’ve achieved, but committed to making our case, expanding our base, and strengthening our hand.
Steve McKee is a branding expert, author, and visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation exploring ideas and their influence.
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