Echoes of Ronald Reagan or something more? A look at Donald Trump’s overhaul of Washington
How worried — or optimistic, depending on your point of view—should you be about the Donald Trump shakeup of Washington?
Or put another way, will this firestorm of change last?
Trump will address the nation Tuesday night, as he speaks to a joint session of Congress. It will be his first major speech since his Jan. 20 inauguration, and reaction both in Congress and the public will provide some clues.
The address comes after six weeks of explosive activity unseen in Washington in decades: Mass firings of government employees, congressional approval of a budget blueprint that could trigger huge cuts in popular programs, a nationwide crackdown on undocumented aliens and more.
Is all this routine for a new administration? Are there echoes of Ronald Reagan’s 1981 blitz, the last time a new president tried to rapidly overhaul how the government operated? Or is Trump seizing too much power?
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is optimistic. “This can be an historic moment for our party and our principles,” he said last week at a forum at Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group as the House prepared to vote on a Republican-authored budget plan.
Many experts saw tough times ahead for Trump opponents.
“Could congressional Republicans eventually stand up to President Trump? Of course. But is there any reason to expect this to happen? None that I can see,” said James Adams, professor of political science at the University of California, Davis.
“Frankly, I think the chances that Republicans in Congress stand up to President Trump anytime soon are about the same as the odds that Trump elopes with Nancy Pelosi,” he said, citing the former Democratic House Speaker from San Francisco.
“It’s not time for panic, but it is time for worry,” said John Pitney, professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College.
Echoes of Reagan
When America speaks in an election, presidents replacing incumbents from the other party know they need to act fast while the mandate is still fresh.
President Barack Obama moved to reform the nation’s health care system after succeeding President George W. Bush in 2009. Bush, when he took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, pushed through a major tax cut.
Reagan saw his 1980 election, when he carried 44 states, as a mandate for sweeping change, a sharp break from the New Deal-Great Society expansive government that Democrats had championed since 1932.
“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” Reagan declared in his 1981 inaugural address .
He and his team stormed Washington with plans to reinvent the federal government. They wanted to eliminate the Department of Education and dramatically cut taxes while slashing benefits such as Medicaid and other help for poorer people.
There are differences. Washington was more prone to bipartisanship in the Reagan years. Reagan also had been governor of California for eight years, so he had experience navigating the political process.
By fall, though, as Congress and Reagan had to write a detailed budget for the first time, things partially stalled. Reagan had to trim his proposed budget cuts somewhat. There was a brief government shutdown.
Reagan got his big tax cuts, significant budget cuts and defense buildup, but overall spending continued to go up at a fairly normal pace. Federal deficits would climb to new levels during his eight years in office, levels that would not come down significantly until the mid-1990s.
What’s different?
Some experts see several reasons to be concerned about Trump’s actions:
▪ Elon Musk. “Trump’s approach is to use a nameless, faceless bureaucracy of 20-somethings and Elon Musk to dismantle a nameless, faceless bureaucracy,” said Christian Grose, academic director at the USC Schwarzenegger Institute.
Reagan and his successors usually used Cabinet officials confirmed by the Senate or veteran government insiders to make their case to Congress and the public. Musk, the key player in the new Department of Government Efficiency, has been a business executive.
▪ Republican control. Reagan never had Republican control of both Houses of Congress. While the Senate had a majority during his first six years, the GOP never controlled the House during his presidency.
Today, Republicans control both chambers. While it still takes 60 votes to limit most debate in the Senate, where Republicans have 53 seats, control means the GOP sets the agenda.
▪ The breadth of change. The mass firings, the executive orders that say independent agencies should be subject to presidential review, the shuttering of entire offices is all extraordinary.
The Democratic view of what’s gone on so far: That “Trump is doing this unilaterally when he has two Republican houses means he doesn’t even have confidence he’s going to convince Republicans to go along,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.
There’s more to come. The administration last week told departments in a memo to provide plans by March 13 to significantly downsize its workforce. No specific numbers were mentioned.
Why not to worry
How far can Trump go? Is he really the threat to democracy Democrats claim? Some potential stopgaps:
▪ Congress. All 435 members of the House and 35 senators face re-election next year, including 22 Republicans. They know well that individual reductions can sting back home.
So while Republicans were voting for the budget outline last week that could lead to huge spending cuts in popular programs, many in California made it clear they’d be wary of any cuts that caused local pain.
“This budget isn’t going to be the be-all and end-all,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Chico. He listed several areas that could need help, notably forest management and “some of the things that support agriculture.”
Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, one of the state’s most vulnerable House Republicans, tweeted his budget vote was “an important procedural step to keep the legislative process moving. To be clear, this resolution doesn’t include any specific policy provisions.”
▪ Markets. Mention tariffs and financial markets get nervous, and Trump has been threatening to impose big tariffs, or taxes, on goods coming from Canada, Mexico and China. Polls have found that one of the major reasons Trump won was voters’ hope for a more robust economy.
But uncertainty about tariff disputes can affect business investment, consumer spending, job creation, and financial markets, said Sung Won Sohn, president of SS Economics in Los Angeles, recently.
“If these uncertainties persist, the U.S. may face a prolonged period of sluggish economic growth and weaker employment gains. When businesses remain uncertain about future tariff policies, they often hesitate to expand operations or hire new workers,” he said.
▪ Courts. Court cases and rulings seem to be coming almost daily for and against what the administration is doing.
Thursday, San Francisco U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup said the government’s dismissal of thousands of probationary employees appeared to be illegal. The next step in the process was uncertain.
“As for firing lots and lots of federal employees, each one of these cases presents a potential lawsuit by the employee,” said Charles Turner, professor of political science at California State University, Chico.
“I would think the sheer volume would increase the likelihood of a lawyer making a convincing argument for an injunction/stay until the matter can be heard in court,” he said.
Will changes last?
Ultimately the success of the early Trump blitz is likely to come down to whether the public likes it or not.
“Voters tend to blame incumbents when bad things happen, so if large-scale disasters occur (more plane crashes and near misses, disease outbreaks, large-scale damage to national parks, etc.) things will not settle down and Trump and the GOP in Congress will be blamed with unified control of government,” Grose said.
The Reagan lesson is that the immediate political future is unpredictable and largely out of a president’s complete control.
The economy went into a deep recession in the fall of 1981, Republicans lost a net 26 House seats in the 1982 election and the president’s approval ratings sank into the upper 30s by early 1983.
But in 1984, with the economy rebounding strongly, Reagan and his programs shared credit for the turnaround and he easily swept to a second term, carrying 49 states.
This story was originally published March 3, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Echoes of Ronald Reagan or something more? A look at Donald Trump’s overhaul of Washington."
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