Do President Donald Trump’s policies have staying power? Conventional Beltway wisdom would suggest no. But we are not in conventional times.
It’s long been assumed that legislative actions have more sticking power than executive ones. That’s by design. The legislative process is cumbersome and messy, but ultimately it is shaped by 535 lawmakers’ opinions from districts and states across the nation. In contrast, executive orders are the whims of a single person. To overturn them, the next president needs only to rub the same genie’s lamp.
No recent president has demonstrated this better than Barack Obama. I say this as a conservative. In his first two years in office, he passed a series of landmark laws — a historic stimulus package, the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Act. At the time, I was at a center-right think tank that was cranking out daily reports and op-eds about why these laws were wrongheaded.
But nearly 20 years later, despite the concerted efforts of Republicans, these laws largely remain in effect. In fact, Obama’s legislative accomplishments have been so sticky that Republicans’ new health care idea is to create a parallel MAHA version of the ACA.
In contrast, Trump has signed far fewer laws than any president in the 21st century. It’s estimated that Trump signed just 38 bills into law in 2025, including the sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act, whereas other modern presidents have signed between 80 and 120 laws in their first year in office.