False Idols of the Bureaucratic Class
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
—Oscar Wilde (attributed)
One of the bigger personal challenges I face in writing these entries and indeed, in arguing for what I assess to be rational approaches to problems that affect all of us is that I am deeply distrustful of the entrenched political class, and equally distrustful of the easily-persuaded masses who mostly act as consumers of the political system rather than participants in it. In making my arguments, I have to try to remain aware of the fact that most won’t even bother to read anything more complex than a meme regarding the people and process that govern their lives, and they certainly lack any ambition to try and comprehend the nuance of why one side may be different from another. So, here we go again—one more attempt to cut through the noise and speak to minds that still value reason. A recent conversation with a sharp-witted former colleague made me realize that a deeper dive into this subject was warranted. He pointed out an important nuance in my last piece, one that deserves exploration. And so, we begin.
As I have frequently lamented in these entries, the ongoing restructuring of the federal government under Donald Trump has been met with hysterical cries of authoritarianism, an existential crisis for democracy, and, in some cases, outright panic from the political class. Yet, thirty years ago, a different president slashed 388,000 federal jobs, imposed stringent agency reforms, and pushed sweeping government efficiency measures—only to be hailed as a pragmatic centrist for doing so.
That president was Bill Clinton.
I’m aware the redundancy of this piece risks losing some of you here. I’ve touched on this in a recent essay, and if you’re so inclined, I would recommend reading “The Reckoning” from 19 February. Still, it’s well worth the time and energy to dig into this comparison as it truly does wonders to highlight some of the Bureaucratic State’s false idols. If you want to understand the distinction between these two events, you must look past the superficial comparison of job cuts and budget reductions. Clinton’s reforms trimmed federal employment, but they did not threaten the bureaucratic state. They restructured it in a way that ultimately strengthened the political class and entrenched its power. By contrast, Trump’s cuts strike at the very mechanisms by which the bureaucracy preserves itself—severing the self-perpetuating cycle of influence, funding, and regulatory control that turns unelected officials into de facto rulers.
For those who haven’t read “The Reckoning,” in the 1990s, Clinton’s administration, guided by Vice President Al Gore’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government, implemented sweeping reductions in the federal workforce. The headlines at the time were impressive: nearly 400,000 federal positions were cut, and government was officially downsized.
But what actually happened?
The reduction in federal workers did not translate into a reduction of government influence. Instead, it created a massive surge in government contracting. By slashing direct federal employment, the administration created a vacuum that private-sector firms rushed to fill, hiring a staggering one million new employees to perform work for the federal government. The political class, far from shrinking, was now simply redistributed into an ecosystem where bureaucrats and career politicians still held the real power.
Consider the immediate consequences of this shift. Government did not shrink—it merely changed categories. Instead of paying a federal employee directly, agencies began paying contractors to do the same work, sometimes at even higher costs. Contractors became dependent on the bureaucrats who managed them ensuring that even as the official government workforce shrank, the influence of federal agencies only grew stronger. A revolving door between government and private contractors emerged creating lucrative post-government careers for bureaucrats who played by the rules and maintained the status quo. More on these ideas in a moment.
What looked like a responsible cut to government spending was, in reality, an expansion of the bureaucratic class’s ability to extract wealth and control industries. The political class retained its power, bureaucrats continued to thrive, and a whole new tier of political patronage was born.
By contrast, Trump’s cuts aren’t just reducing the appearance of government inefficiency. They are severing the roots of bureaucratic power. More than power, they’re threatening a long-established gravy train that has facilitated influence peddling, abuse, extortion, and all manner of corruption for generations. The difference between Trump’s approach and Clinton’s lies not in the scale of their respective cuts, but in what those cuts actually target. Clinton’s cuts preserved and expanded bureaucratic authority. Trump’s cuts are designed to dismantle it.
Several examples illustrate this distinction:
Trump’s Freeze on USAID and Foreign Aid Bureaucracies - One of the first major moves of Trump’s new administration was to pause significant funding streams flowing through USAID and other foreign aid bureaucracies. This was not simply about cutting costs—it was about severing the mechanisms by which bureaucrats controlled international influence and secured lucrative post-government positions with NGOs, defense contractors, and global development firms. Under previous administrations, USAID and similar programs became a central mechanism for redistributing taxpayer money to politically connected firms, many of whom hired former government officials. Trump’s freeze immediately disrupted this ecosystem, removing bureaucratic middlemen and putting political pressure on agencies to justify their expenditures.
Federal Workforce Reduction Without Contractor Replacement - Unlike Clinton, who allowed the contractor class to replace federal employees, Trump has made it clear that reducing the federal workforce means actually eliminating unnecessary roles, not outsourcing them. The goal is to eliminate redundant positions entirely—meaning that bureaucrats cannot simply offload work to private firms while maintaining regulatory oversight and influence. The bureaucratic class is not afraid of losing individual jobs; it is afraid of losing control. That is why the pushback against Trump’s cuts has been so aggressive.
Trump’s Rollback of the Regulatory State - One of the most direct attacks on bureaucratic power has come through Trump’s aggressive deregulation. The federal regulatory apparatus is the single most potent tool of the administrative state—it allows unelected officials to wield control over entire industries without congressional approval. By rolling back thousands of regulations, Trump has done more than simply make business operations more efficient—he has cut off bureaucrats’ ability to extract power, favors, and wealth from those businesses. This is why the media and entrenched officials have framed deregulation as reckless, despite the demonstrable benefits to economic growth.
For the political class, the administrative state, and for the entrenched bureaucracy, there’s every reason to fear this type of reform. The reaction to Trump’s cuts is not rooted in a genuine concern for effective governance. If it were, Clinton’s actions would have been met with similar outrage. The real issue is that Trump’s reforms do not merely rearrange the bureaucratic class—they threaten its existence.
The political class thrives not on government’s size alone, but on its ability to extract wealth and power from the system. This happens through three main mechanisms, which I touched on above: Contracting and procurement relationships—where agencies award contracts to politically connected firms in exchange for influence. Regulatory gatekeeping—where bureaucrats dictate who can enter and thrive in specific industries. Post-government career pipelines—where former officials leverage their connections to secure lucrative positions with the same firms they once regulated. To this, I’ll also add the strong incentives it gives to private sector companies to hire the relatives and friends of influential bureaucrats in order to gain access and favors.
Trump’s reforms are not just cutting spending—they are removing the incentives that allow bureaucrats to profit from public service. That is the existential threat.
It’s helpful here if you can think of the Bureaucratic State in terms of a religion. If Trump’s cuts merely affected individual government workers, the response would be outrage, but not hysteria. The reason for the panic is that Trump’s actions strike at the belief system of the bureaucratic class itself. For decades, government expansion has been treated not as a policy choice, but as a moral imperative. Bureaucrats have convinced themselves that their own existence is indispensable to civilization—that their intricate web of regulations, grants, and enforcement mechanisms must continue, lest society itself collapse. Like the false idols of ancient civilizations, the bureaucratic class demands worship. It demands that the people believe in its necessity. It ferociously punishes heretics who suggest that perhaps, just perhaps, it is the problem rather than the solution.
Trump is tearing down those idols, one after the next, and showing them to be the lies they are.
The bureaucratic class is responding not as a rational institution debating policy differences, but as a theocracy watching its temple burn. It is why every reform is framed in existential terms. It is why every efficiency measure is met with apocalyptic rhetoric. It is why the media, academia, and the Washington elite have rallied with such desperation to preserve the system. They have to - to them, it is existential. If President Trump succeeds, the ponderous machine they’ve built over generations to keep them in power and enrich them will cease to exist. What a world that could be.
The real battle here is one for accountability. At its core, this is not a battle over government size—it is a battle over who controls government itself. Clinton’s reforms were tolerated because they left the bureaucracy intact, allowing it to evolve into an even more sophisticated and entrenched system of political enrichment. Trump’s cuts, however, are not simply eliminating jobs or reducing budgets. They are cutting off the means by which the bureaucratic class sustains itself. That is why the political class is in full panic mode, and it’s why you see that panic on both sides of the aisle. Trump is not just tearing down a few inefficient agencies. He is demolishing the golden idols of Washington’s ruling elite—the mechanisms that allow unelected officials to accumulate power, wealth, and influence at the people’s expense.
The bureaucratic class is not fighting for democracy. It is fighting for survival.
And that should tell you everything you need to know.