We the People. The Rule of Law, Separation of Powers, and a complicit Congress
By Cheryl Tevis
Drain the Swamp! Shut down the Deep State! Weaponized government! You heard it all on the Trump campaign trail. One-liners like this are great for rallies, but when it comes to the day-to-day reality of governing, do they make sense? We the People are supposed to believe the career civil servants who administer the very institutions that hold our government together are aiding and abetting a sinister conspiracy to subvert it?
Over the past several decades, government has been derided as being inept, slow, and bureaucratic. “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” Ronald Reagan said time and again. “Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”
However, within three years, President Jimmy Carter and Congress passed the 1978 Civil Service Act to professionalize the Civil Service. Created in 1883 under the Pendleton Act, it operated purely on a spoils system in its early history. Each new administration led to employee turnover and churn, creating a huge loss of institutional knowledge and even greater corruption.
However, today’s Republican rallying cry isn’t simply about reducing regulations, increasing tax cuts, and a smaller government footprint. Under Trump, it’s essentially a hostile takeover.
The term Deep State originated to describe dictatorships, where propaganda, dirty tricks, and even violent attacks to overthrow the government were the norm. Today it seems that the Republican pot is calling the kettle black.
What Trump and Musk fail to understand, or willfully choose to misunderstand, is that the Deep State, i.e., government civil servants, are intricately embedded into the lives of everyday Americans. We the People rely on their expertise to implement policies and programs, administration after administration. It doesn’t matter whether civil servants like these policies or not. It’s their job. And the “Deep State” isn’t confined to Washington, D.C. Kansas City has 30,000+ federal employees; they’re in every state, and our local communities.
We the People are discovering this hour by hour as civil service buyout ultimatums loom, and government web sites go dark. Secretly. Under the cover of darkness. It’s as if We the People have no right to know.
It’s Not Them vs. Us
Let’s start with the relatively obscure USAID: the U.S. Agency for International Development responsible for almost $2 billion of humanitarian food aid annually. What does it have to do with Iowans? More than you might think. Agriculture is Iowa’s number 1 industry. Under USAID’s Food for Peace program, four billion pounds of American-grown food was shipped to 58 million people in 2022.
A total of 60,000 metric tons of soy worth $23 million under USAID’s Food for Progress has been paused, according to the American Soybean Association. Last spring, USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation announced a $950 million contract with USAID to distribute rice, wheat, lentils, chickpeas, sorghum, vegetable oil, cornmeal, navy, pinto and kidney beans to 18 countries under the PL 480 Food for Peace program, Food for Progress and other programs.
This through line between USAID and Iowa was driven home on Wednesday this week when Governor Reynolds testified at a House Oversight Committee hearing on “Rightsizing Government” in Washington, D.C. An Illinois Democrat asked Reynolds if purchasing crops from Iowa farmers would be considered “a criminal activity”. Elon Musk had re-posted a comment from convicted felon and Trump advisor Michael Flynn that USAID should be shut down because it was making illegal payments. After attempting to avoid answering, she ventured as far as to say, “In general, [purchasing crops from Iowa farmers] it is not.”
What about the through line between USAID and the World Food Prize Foundation, the crown jewel of Des Moines? Last October, Dr. Cary Fowler, the deputy coordinator for diplomacy of Feed the Future, a USAID program, was honored as a World Food Prize laureate. This is only one of many long-standing relationships.
In July 2023 I wrote a column featuring World Food Prize Nobel Laureate Heidi Kuhn. A $10 million USAID contract was awarded to her organization, Roots of Peace, for introducing Afghan farmers in 34 provinces to the T-trellis system of growing grapevines, reducing disease and the threat of winter kill from growing grapes on the ground. Does this seem like a criminal activity?
Today Roots of Peace is one of about 10 nonprofits still working in Afghanistan. One focus is a USAID-funded Kitchen Gardens program for women, providing seeds, tools, and teaching them to grow produce to feed their own families. Afghan men take the surplus to sell at market.
USAID also is involved in providing HIV medicines, stemming an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda, children’s vaccinations, and life-saving clinical trials for cancer research. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced waivers on January 24 for this relief, along with food and shelter for Ukraine and other desperate countries, it’s not clear that it’s getting through. The Famine Early Warning System created in 1985, and monitoring for the Highly-Pathogenic Avian Influenza, also has been stopped.
But if one looks at USAID only as a transactional agreement benefiting Iowans, the commodity purchases alone are significant at a time when farmers are experiencing low commodity prices and potential tariffs, including trade wars.
Could USAID, with its $50 billion budget, benefit from reforms and restructuring? No doubt. But indiscriminately upending the lives of 10,000 employees, and risking the lives and well-being of people in need across the globe, is cruel and inhumane. Without an understanding of how things work, it’s simply a slash and burn operation on the world’s neediest people by the world’s richest man.
Beyond Musk and Trump, guess who else is happy about dismantling USAID? Putin, who kicked out USAID in 2012; Iran and other authoritarian governments also are praising it. Our use of soft power strengthens national security. The Masterminds of high tech, and low touch behind this never completed the Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People course [of Foreign Aid].
Education Next in Line?
Musk and his whiz kids also have been rooting around in the Dept. of Education. Created after the Civil War, President Carter elevated it to a Cabinet position to highlight the national importance of education, and its purpose of ensuring all students access to equal opportunity. Yet Trump is expected to issue an executive order to “dismantle” it.
Education is a state role, of course. Washington, D.C. doesn’t set the curriculum. But the U.S. Dept of Education administers Title 1 funds, which provides billions to schools with students from low-income families. It also directs the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, making certain that children with disabilities receive equitable public education. How important is this to Iowa, and other red and blue states? Our Governor and legislature cut into AEA funding and services last year and continue to underfund public schools.
The federal Education department also dispenses college student aid, including Pell Grants, direct student loans, and administers FAFSA. Its Title IX role, however, may have put a target on its back.
Less than 5% of the federal budget goes to education. The ultimate goal may be to starve it of funds and shrink its staff. Trump already has signed an Executive Order instructing the Dept. of Education to prioritize private school choice funding.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 25 aims to get rid of teacher tenure grades in K-12 and allow the direct election of school principals. It might be difficult to accomplish these and other mandates without an actual federal department. How do mandates allow for local control? Sounds more like the tactics of a schoolyard bully!
Interestingly, Gov. Reynolds was asked at the Congressional hearing on Rightsizing Government if giving $100 million of taxpayer funds to private schools without any independent mechanism for oversight was a good strategy for eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. Her legislation to limit Iowa’s state auditor from doing his job also was singled out.
What will be Gov. Reynolds’ version of DOGE? ? “Federal government needs to operate more like a business,” she said at the hearing. “Every program needs to be looked at.” Like X or Tesla folks are doing with DOGE? No thanks. As Reynolds acknowledged during questioning, the consolidation of government here was not carried out by novices accessing Iowans’ personal data. The bill was rammed through the legislature, but there was a vote.
What’s been the impact of Iowa’s 2023 DOGE on Iowans? Should we review it before unleashing DOGE 2.0?
Business isn’t the same as government. Businesses aren’t accountable to anyone except their shareholders and profit goals. Government is accountable to We the People.
Not Stopping Here
Look for more government departments and agencies on the chopping block. We the People must make our voices heard.
One branch of American government is working: the courts. But Trump’s plan is to overwhelm them. The wheels of justice grind slowly, and damage will be done before the courts can act as a guardrail of Democracy.
Where is Congress in all this? Republicans blocked Democratic efforts to subpoena Musk. They’re ceding their constitutional duty of the power of the purse. It’s not only cowardly – they clearly feel THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.
Why should we care about “Deep State” government bureaucrats? They’re USDA and National Park Service employees, social workers, food safety inspectors, traffic controllers, FBI agents – and more. But make no mistake about it: cutting their jobs to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse isn’t what it’s all about. It’s about stifling DISSENT and shifting their accountability away from We the People. But that’s why they’re called public servants, not customer service representatives.
Some Americans may feel insulated from the cascading consequences of this self-inflicted DOGE crisis. After all, the Social Security checks still are being issued. The mail is getting delivered. Oh, wait, the Postal Service Board of Governors met this week, amid rumors that Trump thinks it’s a great idea to privatize the U.S. postal service.
