With President Donald Trump back in office and the Department of Government Efficiency taking no prisoners, the administration is charging ahead on its campaign promise to shrink the federal government — or, as conservative intellectuals like to say, “dismantle the administrative state.” One proposal gaining traction on the Right is scattering federal agencies across the country.
Supposedly, this decentralization would bring the government closer to the people, curb bureaucracy, and, most appealing to MAGA, drive out the swamp creatures who won’t relocate.
It’s a terrible idea.
On paper, moving, for instance, the Agriculture Department to Missouri, Iowa, or Nebraska sounds logical — closer to the farms, fewer DC progressives in charge. And shifting other agencies to the middle of nowhere seems like a brilliant way to force resignations and starve the administrative beast. It’s tempting to believe we can now finally turn the tables. But agencies are never reduced, let alone eliminated, without morphing into something more insidious.
Take the former White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, created in 2001 by then-President George W. Bush. Conservatives cheered. After all, what could be better than a federal initiative promoting faith? Then Obama took over, and suddenly the office was pushing the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, gutting religious hiring protections, and pressuring people of conviction to support LGBT policies. A Trojan horse inside the gates.
Any agency conservatives think they can control will, in time, be wielded against them. The DOGE appears to grasp this reality, having designated itself a “temporary organization” scheduled to sunset on July 4, 2026. Better to destroy the reins than to eventually hand them over to the bandits.
The notion that red states will keep agencies in check is wishful thinking. The money and influence of crony capitalism will follow faster than you can say “Swamp 2.0.” Or think of the lyrics of a famous early-1960s tune: “I will follow you / Follow you wherever you may go / There isn’t an ocean too deep / A mountain so high it can keep me away.”
Contractors, lobbyists, and nongovernmental organizations will sprout up overnight. Local politics will shift. And federal employees aren’t exactly the NASCAR and country-music crowd. Bureaucracies reproduce their own kind. Before you know it, the new outpost of the federal government, plopped right in the middle of a reliably red state, starts turning purple then blue.
Look at the map. Deep-red states always have at least one stubbornly blue enclave. It’s usually the state capital or a city with a dense cluster of government offices and universities.
Kansas votes Republican, except for Topeka and Lawrence, home to the state government and the University of Kansas, respectively. Missouri is red until you hit Jefferson City, the state capital, and Columbia, where the University of Missouri is. Tennessee is conservative, except for Nashville, where the state government and Vanderbilt University are. It’s the same story in, among other states, Kentucky, Montana, and Idaho. Even Florida, the poster child for conservative governance, has Tallahassee, a deep-blue oasis thanks to Florida State University, Florida A&M University, and a whole lot of state employees.
This isn’t a coincidence. It’s not correlation. It’s causation. Inject the federal government into any location, and it will spread like an invasive species, strangling the surrounding political ecosystem.
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An underappreciated benefit of having Washington as the seat of government is that it’s geographically contained. It’s hemmed in by the Potomac River and the city’s borders. Yes, the federal government has spilled into Virginia and Maryland, but it’s still concentrated. Keeping a watchful eye on government in a 70-square-mile box is a lot easier than policing a bureaucracy stretched from coast to coast. Dispersing federal agencies would make accountability nearly impossible — oversight spread thin and bureaucrats freer than ever to operate in the shadows.
No one denies that the federal government is bloated, unaccountable, and weaponized against the Right. But spreading it out isn’t the solution. That would be a self-inflicted wound that would only make conservatism’s long-term battle to save our constitutional republic even harder.
Dr. Jonathan Bronitsky is the co-founder and CEO of ATHOS, a public affairs firm and literary agency based on Capitol Hill. Follow on X: @jbronitsky.
Paige Bronitsky is a property attorney who served as a senior adviser at the Office of Management and Budget. Follow on X: @paigebronitsky.