Our Republic was designed around independence to prevent any one person, institution, or corporation from taking too much power over neighboring communities, organizations, or government branches. The Constitutional laws, courts and Congress that reflect most Americans’ virtues enforce the checks and balances on executive power and partake in a social contract in which Trump has broken.
Trump has put on a great show of strengthening the Executive branch of government over Congress and the Supreme Court. Some of his cabinet appointments and their questionable cuts to public funds were not even approved by Congress. Yes, RI’s overbilling on Medicaid and lack of adequate recycling facilities is fraudulent and wasteful but we’ll never know the depths of waste, fraud, and abuse that happen elsewhere, because Trump fired the Inspector General responsible for determining its existence, and blocked the courts from inspecting for it. If waste, fraud, and abuse exists elsewhere in RI or in the federal government, few Rhode Islanders will enjoy tax relief from cuts to it, as federal workers are still paid to work from home. Fire first, ask questions later.
Trump has cut funding for badly needed housing and infrastructure without Congressional pushback, even downplaying the need for the FEMA to help states fight natural disasters. Meanwhile Hollywood burns down, Providence homelessness worsens and our bridges fall apart. Instead of showing compassionate concern and a sense of urgency, the first thing Trump can think of asking fire-ravaged CA or NC is whether they have voter IDs and will “be nice to him.” Do you think these disaster victims are thinking about whether their state has less woke ideas or whether state militias can provide as reliable and trustworthy assistance as FEMA? The state of RI can’t tackle either homelessness or bridge reconstruction without federal funds, and has had to choose the latter over the former. Millions of dollars were appropriated for infrastructure by the previous US administration, only to have the current administration cut funding for low-carbon building materials (like concrete and cement RI has already imported a ton of). Expenses continue to rise even as federal funding shrinks.
Congress and the Supreme Court alike have refused to step in and check the President’s ambitions, preferring to ignore or not to weigh in on many of their former responsibilities, including protecting our rights (aka, 14th amendment, affirmative action), our funds, or holding the President accountable for his attempted coup in January of 2021. Congress helped Trump bend the law and pick Supreme Court justices whose appointment should have belonged to the previous administration. One more liberal on the Supreme Court would have saved women’s reproductive health from years of hand wringing, red tape, and overall conservative condescension — and preserved the dignity of Black people whose posts at government and business alike are undermined.
Trump could go a long way in making sure his executive cabinet is not only loyal, but better at what they do, as the strength of the executive branch over the opposition cannot hide the mediocrity of Trump’s cabinet. For one, Trump could send his Secretary of State abroad instead of his son in case there’s a foreign policy crisis requiring expertise. His Intelligence and Defense secretaries are incompetent as they, in addition to disdaining women’s service in the military, repeatedly and knowingly leaked top-secret war plans or left them in a printer, which is both sloppy and sexist. I wonder why many military and law enforcement personnel continue to support the President’s cabinet even after knowing this, or after he insulted McCain’s valor in Vietnam and praised what he called a beautiful day and beautiful people who battered Capitol police officers.
Secondly, his push for a more production-oriented economy conceals his department’s ongoing push for over-consumption detrimental to Americans health and savings accounts. The Secretaries of Energy and the Interior should know that our already record-high supplies of US oil extraction remove the need to cut down forests for drilling. The so-called “energy emergency” ignores reduced need for large, gas-guzzling cars, and demand for a wider array of less expensive fuel sources. What we actually need is more refineries, not oil rigs, and this reveals Trump’s misunderstanding of supply chains. The gasoline and asphalt important for fueling our cars and paving our roads is imported into Providence from Gulf Coast refineries, along with the aforementioned concrete, cement, and lumber from Canada. Trump’s tariffs will continue to make driving and road maintenance more expensive in a state already notorious for its rotten roads. The cost of tariffs will also offset clean building materials planned for use to rebuild the Washington Bridge prior to the President’s cancellation of our funds. Rhode Island’s construction of much needed wind farms also risks losing federal funding after millions were spent on state-of-the art manufacturing boats on the Long Island Sound. In addition to energy infrastructure, how about retail and transit reforms instead of oil extraction? There is no mention in Project 2025 about anti-trust enforcement to revive local town economies or the Department of Transportation’s affordable railway investments to connect them. Providence could insource the manufacture of electrical, HVAC and transportation equipment to offset the loss of toy and textile manufacturing in the city, and to make jobs more accessible for Providence residents who may not drive.
Similarly, Secretary of Health RFK Jr. makes little mention about reducing sugar and corn syrup on our shelves for diabetics, which is a far more urgent healthcare need than reducing additives and preservatives in food and water. RFK also downplays the need for vaccines and the FDA to prevent harm that would come from uniformed choices. Trump’s “Mandate for Leadership” already promotes advanced science through Department Energy so why would RFK downplay its importance for medical science as vaccines and cancer research also fall under that umbrella? The military has to vaccinate people before they enlist to keep their fighting units safe and effective so it’s a wonder why some Republicans who support the military make such a fuss about vaccine mandates. If RFK Jr. cuts funding for vaccines and fluoridated water, it will mean more cavities and sicker, less vaccinated people. The lack of a sound drug policy and healthy alternatives to current food and fossil fuels affects Americans’ health.
Trump should also restore funding to education and the arts, including PBS and NPR. How could Republican law-makers who are well-educated writers fear or despise public education and the arts? What do Republicans that cut the arts and PBS expect to see when they visit Europe on vacation one day, and how do they expect to educate our children? We need books, trades and Harvard brains which stand more of the test of time than guns, military brawn, or the Spartan ”macho” culture too often reflected in our current times.
Lastly, cuts to the Department of Education, in addition to cuts to racial diversity in our universities and workforce, will make us a dumber country with even more inequality. RI public schools need funding so students can afford books, computers, and lab equipment, to prepare students for jobs in the state, so they can compete with other states and with the rest of the world. High taxes and inappropriate regulation in the state of Rhode Island already strain downtown businesses that otherwise employ more young, middle-class workers. We must continue to provide services and funding that help students learn, so they can contribute to the RI economy after graduation. We need to reform rather than cut the Education Department, which teaches DDID students and protects them from discrimination. Cutting education and social services are only a drop in the bucket in savings for taxpayers and Congress is responsible for keeping it running regardless of the President’s opinion. The President would also be wise to keep those few cabinet members that are competent and listen to the Federal Reserve and Labor Commissioner McEntarfer’s feedback on employment statistics, instead of firing her. What’s his next labor commissioner going to report, lies about the economy? Lincoln once picked a disagreeable “team of rivals” as a cabinet, which didn’t sail smoothly during his own first term, but who were at least competent. Trump may want to get his act together or else devolve the executive branch into another revolving door cabinet as confusing as his 1st term in office.