This is What a Competent Cabinet Looks Like

Why Joe Biden's Cabinet is a Welcomed Return to Normalcy

President-Elect Joe Biden officially introduced the initial round of nominees for his cabinet today. They included Antony Blinken at State, Avril Haines as DNI, Alejandro Mayorkas at Homeland Security, Linda Thomas-Green as UN Ambassador, and Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor. It’s also rumored that he will nominate Janet Yellen at Treasury.

All of Biden’s nominees share a few things, like experience and competence, that many of President Trump’s rotating cast of cabinet members lacked. Biden’s nominees have so far all previously served in government leadership roles related to the offices they have been nominated for. It’s even been termed, “The Return of the Deputies” since so many of these new principals have served as deputies in the same or similar agencies under former President Obama.

Why should normal people care about this? People should care because we deserve a government that works well. We deserve a government that’s staffed by the “best of the best.” We deserve an administration that, even if it doesn’t share your particular goals or values, actually knows how to operate the levers of government properly.

Americans can sleep better at night and businesses can operate with more certainty when they know that the federal government is not a wrecking ball swinging around wildly, crashing into various institutional pillars of our democratic form of government. Foreign allies and adversaries can be assured that we will act logically, thoroughly, and and justly - something that will assure the former and deter the later.

So it’s good news from Washington (or Delaware?) for now, for once. On top of excellent data about several COVID-19 vaccines, the incoming Biden administration should have a tailwind at their backs. They can use that momentum to pass a big, controversial, partisan bill sometime in the spring, or maybe they will choose to go down a different path.

Rather than the typical approach, the one both former Presidents Bush and Obama took, the new Biden administration should instead use any political momentum and good will to pass bills that do things that are already popular. Use momentum and good will to fuel more momentum and good will. There is no shortage of popular policies the Biden administration could enact in the first few months of 2021, and doing so would help restore people’s confidence that their government can actually work for them.