President Donald Trump spent his first 10 days back in the White House taking a wrecking ball to the progressive policies that former President Joe Biden and his crew imposed on Americans.

Biden's team spent four years weaving the threads of progressive values and ideology into every federal agency, from the Defense Department to the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump has undone many of the policies, if not the damage they inflicted, in less than two weeks.

The speed and scope with which Trump has attempted to strip the federal government of excess is extraordinary. There are few, if any, parallels in U.S. history to what Trump is now doing.

The assault on progressive ideology already has had a few misfires. For example, the White House on Monday announced a pause in distributing federal grants and loans. Amid the ensuing chaos, a federal judge blocked Trump's order.

https://www.amazon.com/Africircle-AfriPrime/dp/B0D2M3F2JT

Then came Wednesday afternoon, when Team Trump appeared to rescind the order, then said it didn't rescind the actual review of federal spending, only the memo mandating the spending freeze.

If you're confused, get in line. It starts way back there.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump's campaign to "end the egregious waste of federal funding" will continue.

On that score, Trump appears to have strong public support. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that more than 60% of U.S. adults support "downsizing the federal government."

While the spending freeze has dominated the media's attention this week, Trump also announced a buyout plan to reduce the number of federal employees. In exchange for quitting their jobs, most federal workers can receive eight months of salary.

Businesses commonly use buyout offers to reduce payroll costs, but it's unusual for government to adopt the tactic. But Trump is seldom conventional.

Why is he doing all of this? Remember that the federal deficit hit an unsustainable $1.8 trillion in the last fiscal year with the nation at peace and the overall economy relatively strong.

Trump may be the agent of current chaos, but it's nothing compared with what's coming in the years ahead if the nation can't get its finances in order.

Federal spending is out of control

Trump's on-and-off spending freeze left Democrats sputtering about the Constitution.

“Congress holds the power of the purse,” said Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash. “That is very clear in the Constitution.”

Murray is right, to a degree. It is Congress that has the constitutional authority to allocate money. But the executive branch, with Trump as its newly elected head, also has a big say in how the money is actually spent.

And there are plenty of examples of seriously questionable spending that Congress appropriated and the Biden administration distributed. In his annual Festivus Report last month, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., identified more than $1 trillion in wasteful spending ‒ including expenditures to determine if "lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats," to promote "girl-centered climate action in Brazil" and to teach "Kyrgyzstan youth how to go viral."

The biggest money waster that Rand called out: the nearly $900 billion that Americans paid for interest on the national debt in 2024.

Trump is on the right track − sort of

With more than 3 million workers, the federal government is the largest employer in the United States. American taxpayers cover the salaries and benefits for not only all of those employees but also the massive expenses of the government agencies they manage.

All of it adds up to not only an annual deficit approaching $2 trillion but also a national debt that has topped a mind-boggling $36 trillion.

Something (make that, a lot) has to change, and Trump is the American people's chosen agent of change.

Keep in mind that, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Trump in his first term outspent Biden. Perhaps he has adopted fiscal discipline as his New Year's resolution. I hope he has.

He needs to remember, however, that whatever is done by executive order can be undone by executive order. The president must work with Congress to make spending cuts more permanent.

Watching Trump take a sledgehammer to federal spending, instead of a scalpel, is frustrating. It's a very Trumpian thing to do, but it's far from ideal.

Dismantling liberal policies and cutting excess spending won't be pretty to watch. It will be messy and at times chaotic, as we've already seen.

Even so, stripping the government of its bloat is bold and necessary, and in time it will help all Americans avoid the fiscal disaster looming in our nation's future.

https://www.amazon.com/Africircle-AfriPrime/dp/B0D2M3F2JT