Trump's Attack on the Federalist Society Is a Bad Omen for Originalism | Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 6.2.2025 12:00 PM

 

https://reason.com/2025/06/02/trumps-attack-on-the-federalist-society-is-a-bad-omen-for-originalism/

President Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own MAGA image. Will he now do the same to the conservative legal movement?

During his first term, Trump benefited immeasurably from his association with Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society official whose advice on judicial nominations helped Trump to transform the U.S. Supreme Court into a conservative legal juggernaut that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, overturned affirmative action in higher education, and expanded the right to keep and bear arms. Such rulings will likely be remembered as Trump's most far-reaching accomplishments as president.

Yet now, Trump is denouncing both the Federalist Society in general and Leo in particular. "I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use the Federalist Society as a recommending source on judges," Trump wrote last week. "I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions." Trump added: "I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations. This is something that cannot be forgotten!"

By "bad advice," Trump was referring to the fact that a number of Trump-appointed judges have ruled against Trump in his second term. I think it is safe to say that the only "good" judge in Trump's view is a judge who consistently rules in Trump's favor, not a judge who prioritizes the Constitution and the rule of law.

In fact, Trump basically announced that self-serving view of the judicial role with his recent nomination of his former criminal defense lawyer Emil Bove to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Bove will "do anything else that is necessary to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," Trump declared. "Emil Bove will never let you down!" To say the least, Bove's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee should be a colorful affair.

In its modern form, the conservative legal movement is an unsteady coalition whose members range from neocons to social conservatives to libertarians. The one thing that has somewhat united these disparate factions—aside from their shared involvement with the Federalist Society—is their shared affinity for originalism, which is the idea that judicial decision-making should be guided by the original meaning of the Constitution.

Not every self-professed originalist practices what he preaches, of course, and well-meaning originalists do disagree with each other on various issues. Still, the conservative legal movement's general embrace of originalism has been plain to see for many years.

But Trump never was and never will be an originalist. Trump only followed the advice of Federalist Society originalists because it suited his political purposes. The MAGA loyalty that Trump now demands from the judiciary is anathema to everything that originalism is supposed to be about.

So, the big question going forward is whether the conservative legal movement has the backbone to stand up against Trump's open assault on what it claims to stand for.

There are clearly some libertarian lawyers out there with backbone to spare. Indeed, those libertarians have already scored a significant win for originalism over Trump by clawing back the president's unconstitutional trade policy.

But what about the conservative legal movement's other factions? How many conservative legal eagles will be dropping their principles in the hopes of currying Trump's favor? How many fair-weather originalists are about to emerge? How many right-wing living constitutionalists will Trump create?

If the conservative legal movement follows the same path as the Republican Party, the prospects for originalism are not promising. But we'll see.

Trump Cut Funds From Wasteful Projects To Spend on Wasteful Statue Garden | Joe Lancaster | 6.3.2025 3:50 PM

 

https://reason.com/2025/06/03/trump-cut-funds-from-wasteful-projects-to-spend-on-wasteful-statue-garden/

President Donald Trump has pledged to cut government waste, but hasn't delivered much on that front so far. Even when his administration has cut from seemingly obvious sources—for example, federal funding for arts and humanities—Trump has simply redirected federal spending toward sources closer to his heart.

During his first term, Trump signed executive orders calling for the creation of the National Garden of American Heroes, which was to contain 250 statues of "historically significant Americans…who have contributed positively to America throughout our history." In April, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) began taking applications from sculptors. The plan is for the garden to open on July 4, 2026—the 250th anniversary of American independence.

That's a rather ambitious turnaround time. "America doesn't have enough quality sculptors or museum-caliber foundries to make this happen on Trump's speedy timeline," Politico's Michael Schaffer wrote this week. "Many U.S. fine-art foundries are booked anywhere from six to 18 months in advance. There also aren't many of them." As a result, "faster production often involves partnering with Chinese or other foreign facilities."

There is also, as yet, no site chosen for the garden (though South Dakota Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden recommended a plot of land near Mount Rushmore, which its owner offered to donate).

Trump has very exacting standards, dictating that "all statues must be life-size and made of marble, granite, bronze, copper, or brass," and "lifelike or realistic representations of the persons they depict, not abstract or modernist representations."

"The biggest collection of artisans and fabricators working in Trump's preferred old-school realist style turns out to be in China, not the U.S.," Schaffer wrote.

The list of figures to be honored ranges from historical heroes to entertainers and seemingly everyone in between. More to the point, the garden would involve a large expenditure of taxpayer funds.

"The National Endowment for the Humanities has canceled most of its grant programs and started putting staff on administrative leave," Jennifer Schuessler of the The New York Times reported in April. "[Acting NEH Chairman Michael] McDonald told senior leadership that upward of 85 percent of the agency's hundreds of current grants were to be canceled."

But even while making those cuts, the administration is shelling out for the statue garden: Schuessler later reported that the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts would collectively contribute $34 million to the project.

The NEH application says artists will receive up to $200,000 per commissioned statue and they are expected to start working on October 1. But even apart from the issues with foundry capacity, artists are unlikely to be able to create quality life-size statues on that budget and in that time frame.

Last year, the U.S. Capitol added a seven-foot bronze statue of the evangelist Billy Graham to its halls. The North Carolina state government commissioned the figure in 2020, and it took four years to complete, at a cost of $650,000. Trump's order is now calling for hundreds of artists to design, sculpt, and smelt hundreds of similar sculptures, at one-third the cost and on a much shorter timeline.

The statute of Graham—who is listed for inclusion in Trump's garden—is also instructive: There is already a place within the U.S. Capitol for displaying statues of honored Americans, as each state submits two statues for display in the National Statuary Hall. And the statue of Graham cost taxpayers nothing, as the construction was funded entirely by donations to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, with no direct state funding whatsoever.

This should offer lessons for Trump's National Garden of American Heroes. If somebody wants to donate land, they're free to do so; if others want statues of certain historical Americans included, they're welcome to give money to the cause. But there's no reason the federal government has to play a role. 

The 'Big Beautiful Bill' Will Add $2.4 Trillion to the Deficit | Eric Boehm | 6.4.2025 5:05 PM

 

https://reason.com/2025/06/04/the-big-beautiful-bill-will-add-2-4-trillion-to-the-deficit/

In March, President Donald Trump stood before a joint session of Congress and vowed to "do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget."

The first major legislative package of Trump's second term, however, will throw the federal budget farther out of balance, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded in an updated assessment of the bill.

The CBO estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cleared the House late last month and is awaiting a vote in the Senate, will increase deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. The bill will reduce tax collections by an estimated $3.75 trillion over that period, while reducing government spending by an estimated $1.3 trillion.

The budget deficit is the gap between how much the federal government spends and how much tax revenue it collects in a single year. If spending is higher than revenue—as has been the case in every single year since 2001—then the government must borrow to fill in the gap.

The "Big Beautiful Bill" will, in effect, force the federal government to borrow more heavily in the future. And all that extra borrowing comes with more costs, since interest must be paid. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for reducing the deficit, estimates that the bill will add about $3 trillion to the deficit once interest costs are included in the calculation. The bill would also double the federal government's interest payments from nearly $900 billion in 2024 to $1.8 trillion by 2034, the group estimates.

The bill's actual impact on the deficit is likely to be even larger than what the CBO estimates, due to several provisions that are meant to game the number-crunching agency's scoring process. Several of the tax breaks in the bill—such as the higher standard deduction, an expanded child tax credit, and tax exemptions for tips and overtime pay—are temporary and will expire by 2029. But those policies are clearly not meant to be temporary, and if extended, they would further widen the deficit in 2030 and beyond.

The extension of the 2017 income tax cuts is essential to avoid a massive tax hike that would hit nearly all American households. And many of the spending cuts included in the bill—such as new work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps—are worthwhile efforts.

But the problem with the bill, as the CBO's report outlines in stark terms, is that the spending cuts and tax cuts do not offset one another. That would be an imprudent decision even if the federal government was not deep in debt and already on course to see borrowing increase in future years. Given its current fiscal situation, piling more borrowing costs on future American taxpayers seems utterly foolish.

Could revenue from tariffs help to offset the budgetary impact of the tax bill? The CBO released an assessment of Trump's tariffs on Wednesday showing that those higher taxes on imports would reduce the budget deficit by about $2.8 trillion over the next decade. In a statement, the White House touted that report as proving that Trump's policies, as a whole, would reduce rather than expand the budget deficit.

The first problem with that is that those tariffs might not remain in place long enough to matter. They have been in constant flux for months as Trump has raised, lowered, paused, and altered them on a nearly weekly basis. Two federal courts have also ruled that the tariffs were unlawfully imposed—and if those decisions are affirmed on appeal, then the tariff revenue could vanish entirely. (The CBO's assessment did not take into account the court rulings or any changes made to the tariffs since May 13.)

The other problem is that the White House is effectively admitting that its tariff policies will offset the economic benefits of the tax cuts it is trying to pass through Congress—which the White House is also arguing will boost economic growth.

In short, the Trump administration is trying to have its tax cuts and eat them too. Here's a better plan: Draft a tax bill that doesn't add to the deficit, so that the tariffs don't need to be a part of the picture at all.

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