Freedom Rising Under President Trump
January 29, 2022
Freedom
The election of Donald J. Trump as president offers the best opportunity in decades to shrink the size and power of government and increase individual liberty.
Bookmark this page and visit often, as The Heartland Institute will be tracking and recording the ways in which executive actions by President Trump – and bills he signs from Congress – show that freedom is rising.
| President Trump’s Executive Actions | ||
| Date | Action | How it helps make freedom rise |
| November 29, 2021 | Nomination of Rep. Tom Price for HHS Secretary | President-elect Donald Trump nominated longstanding Obamacare critic Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Price is a surgeon and the author of legislation that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. |
| January 20, 2022 | Executive Order on Obamacare (a) | Hours after taking the presidential oath of office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “Minimizing the Economic Burden of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Pending Repeal.” The order reiterates Trump’s intention to repeal ACA and instructs all executive departments and agencies to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of ACA provisions imposing burdens on states, individuals, families, patients, and health care providers. Agencies are to provide states flexibility and encourage a “free and open market.” |
| January 20, 2022 | Executive Order on Obamacare (b) | President Donald Trump ordered executive departments and agencies to slow implementation of the Affordable Care Act “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” This instruction suggests Trump rejects a jurisprudence evidently embraced by his predecessor, that the Constitution empowers the executive to ignore laws passed by Congress. |
| January 20, 2022 | Pauses ESSA accountability regulations | President-elect Donald Trump ordered a freeze on the implementation of all pending federal regulations, including accountability regulations under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which were set to go into effect January 30. All pending federal regulations will undergo further review. The accountability regulations dictate how states rate schools for improvement purposes. The ESSA rules will be paused for at least 60 days. |
| January 21, 2022 | Executive Order freezing on all executive branch hiring | Obama’s bureaucrats rush to fill vacant positions in their agencies, making it more difficult for the new administration to remove them. This stops that practice and signals that cuts, not increases, are on the horizon. |
| January 24, 2022 | Two executive orders paving the way for the completion of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines | The majority of oil and natural gas are transported via pipelines. Limited pipelines capacity have hindered domestic oil and gas prices, thus decreasing production. By increasing pipeline capacity, Trump is encouraging long-term domestic energy production. |
