No clear yes/no—depends on the metric, timeframe, and values. Early evidence is mixed, contested, and incomplete.
"Improving the US government" is not a binary. Reasonable people weight different outcomes: fiscal sustainability and waste reduction, regulatory burden and economic growth, border/enforcement capacity, institutional competence and corruption, constitutional limits vs. executive action, or cultural/administrative neutrality. Short-term headlines diverge from longer-term data on debt, productivity, trust, and rule of law. Trump’s second term (post-2024) features rapid executive actions, Schedule F-style reinstatement efforts, deregulation pushes, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) concept with outside advisors. Results so far are directional signals, not settled proof.
Arguments and evidence that it is improving key functions
•Bureaucracy and waste: Prior Trump term and current rhetoric emphasize Schedule F (easier removal of policy officials), freezing regs, and DOGE-style audits targeting duplication, DEI mandates, and improper payments. Federal employment and real regulatory restrictions grew under multiple prior administrations; reversing accretion can raise productivity if it sticks. GAO and inspectors general routinely flag hundreds of billions in improper payments and fragmented programs—targeting those is low-hanging fruit regardless of party.
•Border and enforcement capacity: Measurable illegal crossings and got-aways fell sharply with Title 42-era policies and rose after; restoring deterrence, ending catch-and-release incentives, and using existing statutes addresses a core sovereignty and fiscal function (education, welfare, criminal justice externalities). Asylum backlogs and interior enforcement were widely acknowledged failures.
•Energy, permitting, and growth: Faster fossil and infrastructure permitting, LNG exports, and reduced green-mandate overhead lower input costs. Empirical work (e.g., on NEPA delays) shows multi-year project timelines impose large deadweight losses. Corporate tax and deregulation packages in the first term correlated with pre-COVID wage and investment gains for lower quintiles; similar levers are being reused.
•Institutional skepticism: Public trust in agencies (FBI, CDC, intelligence community, education bureaucracy) hit lows after high-profile errors, suppression episodes, and mission creep. Appointing outsiders and demanding metrics can interrupt capture—even if messy.
These track classic public-choice diagnoses: concentrated benefits, diffuse costs, and iron-triangle inertia. If spending growth slows, real wages rise, and measurable outputs (processing times, error rates) improve, that is improvement on efficiency grounds.
Arguments and evidence that it is not (or is worsening other functions)
•Fiscal trajectory and deficits: Tax cuts + spending resistance often still produce large deficits when entitlements and defense are untouched. Debt-to-GDP already elevated; tariff revenue is not a full offset and can raise consumer prices (incidence studies vary). Continuing resolutions and emergency spending have bipartisan precedent.
•Norms, capacity, and legal risk: High-velocity executive orders, loyalty-focused personnel moves, and revenge rhetoric raise turnover and litigation costs. Competence losses occur if experienced staff exit en masse or if Schedule F is applied clumsily. Courts have blocked or narrowed prior actions; repeated losses create uncertainty. Weaponization complaints cut both ways—prior administrations also stretched authorities (student loans, eviction moratoria, censorship pressure).
•Trade and industrial policy: Broad tariffs function as taxes with retaliation risks; historical Smoot-Hawley and more recent steel examples show concentrated gains, diffuse losses. “National security” exceptions can expand industrial policy without clear productivity upside.
•Polarization and administrative state growth in other directions: Culture-war directives (curriculum, pronouns, contracting) can replace one orthodoxy with another rather than shrinking the state’s cultural footprint. Some appointees have thin records; chaos tax is real.
Data checks matter more than press releases: CBO baseline updates, BLS productivity/employment, Customs and Border Protection encounter stats, Federal Register page counts and economically significant rules, GAO high-risk list, and trust surveys (Gallup/Pew). First-term net regulatory reduction occurred alongside rising nominal spending; COVID scrambled every series.
How to evaluate going forward
Track a short list of observables rather than vibes: primary deficit excluding interest, real median wages and labor force participation, border encounter + release numbers, major rule costs (OMB), FOIA/backlog metrics, and prosecution/charging disparities by administration. Compare to counterfactuals (continued Biden-Harris trajectory, or a generic Republican). Both “deep state resistance” and “authoritarian capture” narratives can be tested against personnel retention, IG independence, and court win rates.
Partisan sources (White House vs. legacy media vs. activist NGOs) systematically overclaim. Primary documents, OMB scorekeeping, and nonpartisan trackers are higher signal. Outcomes that raise broad prosperity and equal application of rules count as improvement; those that mainly reward coalitions or expand discretion do not—regardless of the president’s brand. For detailed policy trackers, see official budget documents, Federal Register, and CBP data releases.