Pence smacks down Trump for plan to consolidate federal government's power: report

Former President Donald Trump and many of his allies at think tanks like the far-right Heritage Foundation have been quietly working on a plan to rip up legal guardrails checking the power of the executive branch should he win in 2024, and massively elevate the power of his presidency to reshape and direct every cogwheel of the federal government.

But one Republican is calling out this plan as dangerous: his own former vice president, Mike Pence, who is running for president himself in competition with his one-time boss, USA TODAY reported on Friday.

"Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is running against Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination for president, said he has the opposite approach," reported Maureen Groppe. "'I don’t want to consolidate power in Washington, D.C.,' Pence said Friday during a town hall in Berlin, N.H. 'I want to devolve power out of Washington, D.C.'"

“I believe in state-based federalism and reform,” Pence continued, saying that he believes more power should be invested “where it can be accountable” — a longtime mantra of conservative politicians, although in fact state governments use tactics like gerrymandering to make themselves even less accountable. He suggested among his other plans an elimination of the Department of Education, another common proposal by GOP lawmakers even though it functions as a vital civil rights agency for children.

The plan of Trump and his allies, detailed by The New York Times, includes eliminating the independence of agencies like the FCC, reviving the long-banned practice of "impounding" money Congress appropriates for agencies the president doesn't support, and reclassifying most of the civil service under a "Schedule F" designation that eliminates merit protections and allows the president to hire and fire the federal workforce at will based on politics.

Trump was working on the plan to gut civil service protections in the final year of his term, but it was quickly scrapped by the incoming Biden administration.