Is real disruption likely? By Al Sikes

Donald J Trump knows and is moving fast.  He understands power’s cycles and the underlying conditions that gain or lose momentum. Yet, even the most insightful cannot account for what can’t be predicted and its influence on the rise and fall of political power. But, lets take a look at what we do know.

As our new President quickly assembles his senior leadership, coalitions of convenience are being shaped. And the quantity of “strange bedfellows” will exceed Washington’s supply of hotel rooms. Government employees might be staying away from their work stations but those with government privileges to be defended, they will be thick at the hotel bars.

People and their organizations, business, and not-for-profits alike, do not give up benefits without a fight. And the United States federal government is obese with allocations, set-asides, tax advantages, regulatory benefits, direct and indirect grants, and more. Most of us are affected.

Each of these government advantages have their constituencies and at the risk of overstatement Members of Congress who are politically indebted.  Members do not want their military base closed, or their local employer to lose its tax credits or for that matter any changes that cost their District money.

As I think about the President-Elect, the most interesting and potentially beneficial dimension is disruption. We read about the differences between Trump and Biden on Ukraine or NATO or North Korea and those will play out. But internationally, the US is one of many. Stronger, but its strength is inevitably diluted as some level of cooperation is not discretionary.

Domestically the White House has immense advantages. Over time the Executive Branch of government has accrued power. The power has come from weaknesses in the representative branch, the Congress. Presidents increasingly issue Executive Orders and if the President’s party controls the Congress few will be blocked and it takes Court challenges a long time to reach closure.

Enter Elon Musk on a wave of extraordinary new technology; technology that is already changing the face of much of what we do. Technology that makes the previously unthinkable thinkable. As I write it appears that the President-Elect is prepared to cede power to Musk and why not.

I chaired the Federal Communications Commission when President George H W Bush was President. He was preoccupied with generational developments in the Soviet Union and deservedly spent much of his time on foreign policy. And you might recall that President Bush assembled the coalition that kicked the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

When it came to domestic policy most agency heads did not feel shadowed by the White House. If President-Elect Trump wants to make generational changes in the bureaucracy, putting Musk in charge of a Commission to draft Presidential Executive Orders to reform the government is a deft move. There will certainly be conflicts and especially with Congressional backers of one benefit or another, but if the Trump/Musk collaboration persists it will be initially traumatic but eventually might help heal our gaping wound, the budget gap.

I left Washington for New York in 1993 and became immersed in the new economy—the digital one. In those early years our venture capital investments funded disruption (first investment—Netscape) and the disruption put extraordinary pressure on what we started calling legacy media. Newspaper, magazine, and broadcast media all declined and some precipitously. Much of government is controlled by legacy systems.

The disruption that Trump/Musk promise will necessarily be different. If it is carried out effectively, it will reduce the central government’s workforce and promote efficiency without bankruptcies. Most of the bloated organizations are statutorily authorized making dissolution of whole agencies virtually impossible. Hopefully Congress will help by repealing statutory status but don’t count on it.

Trying to stay out of the weeds, I’ll close with this observation. While the President-Elect has played fast and loose with many traditional Republican positions, tax reduction remains a central promise. If this disruptive period fails to change the trajectory on budget deficits, it will be a failure. And if government revenues do not change, then the numbers on the financial statements will have moved around but the net effect will simply be a different line-up of winners and losers. The cynics hanging around the hotel bars are betting on that outcome. History will only honor the opposite.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.