BY STEVE BELL | DEC 15, 2016
The legendary Speaker of House, Sam Rayburn of East Texas, once said, “If you can’t run an election against big banks and big oil, it must not be America.”
A variation of that theme animated the successful campaign of President-elect Donald Trump—another incarnation of long-running political theater starring Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryant, and Huey Long. And the billionaire, Ivy League-educated, casino maestro played his role well.
He would lead the rebels against the swamp.
In the Washington, D.C. swamp—the one that needs draining— among the biggest denizens are financial institutions and energy companies. Replete with literally hundreds of lobbyists, bank and oil company tentacles that wrap themselves around everything in the swamp.
Hill staff used to say, when a member got on the Senate Banking Committee or House Financial Services Committee, “Well, that guy will have no problems raising money for his next election.”
Senate Energy Committee and House Energy and Commerce members remain inundated with energy company contributions.
Just add defense and health-related lobbyists to the mix, and you have identified about 80 percent of the swamp.
A logical conclusion then would be that to drain the swamp, one would have to take on these critters.
Analysts contend that it was President-elect Trump’s anti-Washington, up with the people message that sunk Hillary Clinton. Burdened with the Clinton Foundation questions, allegations of favoring powerful moneyed constituencies and nations, “dangerous” use of private email accounts that could led to national security breaches, Clinton epitomized the swamp. Or that’s conventional narrative of Washington pundits—almost none of whom thought Trump could win.
Now, as was once better said, the scales have fallen from our eyes.
The swamp has struck back.
Big oil as a target? Not hardly. The CEO of perhaps the best-managed integrated oil company in the world, Exxon Mobil, has been nominated to be Secretary of State.
Former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, a great friend of big oil, may now sit atop the Energy Department, which he once wanted to eliminate from government. Yet, the most consequential part of Energy remains its responsibility for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. And the national nuclear weapons labs in the country, along with the other national laboratories, have drawn the ire of the President-elect.
Big banks on the run? Not so fast. Two senior executives from Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest and most controversial bank/investment companies, could head Treasury and the National Economic Council post, two critical Executive Branch slots.
Another extremely successful billionaire, Wilbur Ross, has been nominated to lead the Department of Commerce.
One view of this goes way back to when President Franklin D. Roosevelt picked Joseph P. Kennedy to become the first Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked how he could appoint someone with as controversial financial background as Kennedy, Roosevelt said, “It takes one to catch one.”
In truth, Kennedy turned out to be an excellent choice, bringing many reforms to the financial markets. Thus, President-elect Trump way have the same notion—bring in folks who know the ins and outs of finance and energy. They will know what to do and which villains to do it to.
Yet another view persists. Each of the appointees are deal-makers. President-elect Trump prides himself on being a superb deal-maker. The President-elect may see government as he sees real estate— as an essentially one-on-one transaction arena.
Imagine the disappointment that may strike President Trump when he discovers that in Washington, D.C., as in almost all the capitals of the developed world, almost nothing in government is a one-on-one transaction.
He will still have to accommodate those pesky limitations imposed by Article I and II of the Constitution. He will confront a bureaucracy full of career professionals who may do as all bureaucracies do— say yes sir, to a Presidential demand and then bog things down with lawyers and program managers for a year or two or until everyone loses interest.
And that, really, is the larger, deeper and murkier swamp. Even when it’s drained it fills back up again.
Editor’s Note: Steve Bell is now a Visiting Scholar at the BiPartisan Policy Center and a consultant to financial firms. He was Staff Director of the Senate Budget Committee when the Reagan Revolution budget was enacted, was appointed by President Reagan to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board and was a Managing Director of Salomon Brothers for 10 years.