David R. Burton is one of three coauthors of the chapter in the Mandate for Leadership concerning the Department of the Treasury. Stephen Moore and William L. Walton are the other two authors. Burton is also the author of the chapter on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The liberal Guardian newspaper credits him as an economic policy expert, and the conservative Heritage Foundation lists him as a senior fellow in economic policy who “focuses on securities regulation, tax policy, business law, entrepreneurship, administrative law, financial privacy, the U.S. Department of Commerce, corporate welfare, international investment, international information sharing, the U.S. economic relationship with China, and climate-related financial risk.”
Burton has a record of being highly critical of the SEC and related agencies. Many of his criticisms can be found in the Mandate for Leadership. If we are to give him the benefit of the doubt, many of his proposed reforms may make sense. (For example, the SEC may well need to improve its IT.) There are several reasons to be concerned, however. One is that he is willing to be associated with the highly ideological Heritage Foundation and the highly partisan and untrustworthy news source the Epoch Times.
There are other reasons for concern. For example, his work in the Mandate for Leadership follows the pattern found throughout the book of recommending that the agencies that conservatives do not like simply be eliminated rather than be reformed.
This is not an atypical passage: the “Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and FINRA have proved to be ineffective, costly, opaque, and largely impervious to reform. To reduce costs and improve transparency, due process, congressional oversight, and responsiveness, PCAOB and FINRA should be abolished.”
The PCAOB was established, like many other agencies, to address a problem. As Investopedia describes it: “The PCAOB was established at the same time as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to address the accounting scandals of the late 1990s. The board protects investors and other stakeholders of public companies by ensuring that auditors follow strict guidelines.” While the PCAOB may indeed lack effectiveness, cost businesses money, be bureaucratically unresponsive (to whom?), and so on, it is suspect to claim that a board that was created to prevent past wrongs from repeating themselves should be subject to wholesale elimination.
Similarly, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or FINRA “is dedicated to protecting investors and safeguarding market integrity in a manner that facilitates vibrant capital markets.” FINRA, too, did not arise out of a vacuum but rather as a response to market failure (yes, conservatives, markets can fail).
It is also unclear, to say the least, how making two entities nonexistent can “improve transparency, due process, congressional oversight, and responsiveness.”
Another reason for concern is that the drastic changes proposed in the Mandate for Leadership are intended to be carried out quickly, on a 180-day schedule. This radical approach all but guarantees a dangerous shock to the markets. Forbes, which is a business-friendly, not liberal source of news, has an article titled “Project 2025 Is A Blueprint For Business Disaster.” Under a subhead of “fiscal policy,” for example, Forbes writes:
“Along with the usual slate of tax cuts for the wealthy, Project 2025 also calls for abolishing the Federal Reserve, ending its role as the lender of last resort, and letting the President weigh in on interest rate hikes. Trump has also called for a 10% across-the-board tariff on imported goods, which could kick off a global trade war, rapidly accelerate inflation, and cost the average family $1500 a year. It doesn’t sound great for business.”
Who might benefit from slashing regulatory agencies or, for example, repealing mandated disclosures under Dodd-Frank? As the Center for American Progress puts it: “Project 2025 Would Allow Financial Disaster To Bolster Wall Street’s Bottom Line.”
American Progress has this to say:
“Project 2025 will destabilize the American economy and scare away billions in investments that make us the biggest economy in the world. Their plan eliminates the independence of regulatory and consumer protection agencies that give business confidence in our economy, like the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission. Replacing a predictable rule of law with more power for politicians would weaken our economic power on the world stage. The value of the dollar will decline, jobs will disappear, trade will diminish, and Americans’ income and quality of life will decline.”
Also, in keeping with the far-right outlook of the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025, Burton disapproves of any form of corporate responsibility, and any government effort to foster corporate responsibility, beyond the most narrowly interpreted responsibility to provide return to shareholders. Any consideration of “corporate social responsibility (CSR); stakeholder theory; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria; socially responsible investing (SRI); sustainability; diversity; business ethics; or common good capitalism,” as well as DEI, is not to be part of government policy.
Burton is also against any government rule that would encourage corporations or investors to consider the impact that a business might have on climate change. In other words, the government should take no action to deter businesses—especially fossil fuel companies and their investors—from continuing to contribute to climate change. Climate change is what an economist might call a negative externality—something that is an ethical, but not an economic, concern to the businesses whose profits depend on the problem. Unless, of course, people who are concerned for themselves and their descendants use their power to influence the government to ensure that the government makes the problem an economic and not just an ethical issue for the businesses.
While Burton seems to have avoided making some of the more extreme statements on culture war issues that have gotten some of his fellow authors media attention, his recommendations are arguably not conservative (if by “conservative” one means “steady-as-she-goes, incremental changes” conservative) but rather radical. He is on board with Project 2025’s plan to radically and rapidly change the government to suit the ideology of a minority of Americans.
