A great idea: Move Washington out of Washington!

In American Greatness, Roger Kimball agrees with the Blackburn-Hawley plan to move ten federal agencies out of Washington D.C.

Have you noticed the odd feeling you get when walking around downtown D.C.? I used to think that it was because of the stately government buildings, the imposing aura of edifices like the Supreme Court (with its ironic motto, “Equal Justice Under Law”) or the Capitol or the White House. That’s part of it, no doubt, but for the daily pedestrian, an essential reality of life in Washington is brought home by the ubiquity of the lobbying efforts. They’re all there, the people that want something, and the people who get paid to articulate those wants to lawmakers, their gargantuan staffs, and the media. (I say “lawmakers,” though the House has pretty much given up on making laws for the sake of continuing their hit mini-series, “At Home with Impeachment.”)

Donald Trump came to office promising to “drain the swamp.” He has made a little, mostly rhetorical, progress around the edges. But the swampiness of the swamp is deep and inveterate. He will never succeed in that stupendous sanitary engineering project until he removes the thing that attracts the swamp creatures to Washington just as a rotting carcass attracts flies and other necrophagites: centers of power and influence.

In our day, anything that can be done to dismantle the Leviathan of the vast, unaccountable apparat of administrative overreach should be done. The Blackburn-Hawley plan is not the end of the story. But it might mark the beginning of a sunny new chapter. It’s time to get on with draining the swamp, emptying out those pots full of unwary frogs. Taking a good bit of “Washington” out of Washington is a good way to start.

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