President Donald Trump came to Washington with a clear mandate to drain the swamp. As his 2018 budget has revealed, it’s clear he’s keeping his promise to do just that.
The Trump budget proposal for fiscal year 2018-2019 includes substantial cuts. Such cuts will be a welcome benefit to the American people as it demonstrates the government is no longer picking winners and instead is creating a level playing field in which individual enterprise can prosper.
According to the Washington Post, some departments were sweating over the potential for cuts that are now a reality. “The department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which funds research on advanced vehicles as well as other aspects of clean energy, would face a roughly 70 percent cut in 2018, carving about $ 1.45 billion from its $2.09 billion 2017 budget.” The Post story additionally says other programs will take over 50 percent budget cuts, much to big-government liberals’ and big-government conservatives’ chagrin.
Substantial cuts to the Department of Energy, especially in regards with so-called clean energy, are exactly what every conservative would want to see. It is precisely the limited government, anti-big business, anti-corruption that is essential to American conservatism. Trump understands this well, and he understands that the everyday American workers benefit when the government no longer impedes his ability to do his work without interference or regulatory burden.”
Since the day of its founding by then-president Jimmy Carter, the Department of Energy has become increasingly politicized and bloated in bureaucracy and red tape. That’s not even touching the government subsidies of clean energy. Elon Musk, the self-appointed Subsidy King of Tesla, Space X, and formerly Solarcity who has received more than $5 billion of taxpayers’ money and government subsides, is the poster child of its failure. Despite all its funding and alleged success, Musk was forced to absorb Solarcity into Tesla, just to save it from ruin. Solyndra before that and two weeks ago SolarWorld announced it was no longer “sustainable.”
Trump, as a businessman, knows what it takes to survive. If a company is not sustainable, reality has to set in. Green companies, especially solar, have failed over and over again and can no longer be propped up by the federal government and the American taxpayer. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is taking the steps necessary to protect taxpayers.
President Ronald Reagan, who founded Citizens for the Republic, said in his first inaugural address, “We are a nation that has a government – not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”
The Gipper was correct in the 1980s just as today President Trump is correct to move beyond special interest subsidies for favorite industries.