President Obama instituted a very unusual (in Washington D.C.) ethics policy for his administration. If a person was to work for him, they could not have been a lobbyist or a congressional staffer or special interest lawyer for over two years. This was because people were a lobbyist one day and the next day overseeing an agency they had been against the day before. The idea was to put people into positions that were less attached to outside money. Some waivers had to be made because of especially rare expertise. Obama made seventy waivers over his eight years, mostly during the finance fiasco. Each waiver was accompanied by a reason for the need.

One of the first things President Trump did was to sign an executive order decreasing the rules. He has already signed thirty-seven secret waivers without any reason given. That’s not draining the swamp he campaigned on, but deepening the swamp in Washington D.C. The EPA has the most conflicts with lobbyists and lawyers that represented businesses against the EPA. Now those people are gutting our environmental protections in favor of their former bosses. We are heading back to the good old days of freely polluting the air and water, and allowing banks to gamble with depositor’s money.

Trump just wants to throw out anything done during the Obama years and much done before. Where is a modern day Teddy Roosevelt and his efforts to control the rich and big businesses’ trampling of Americans? Maybe somebody like Biden, or Kasich, or Huntsman?