Yes, I agree that is at least one reason that happened, and possibly the main one.

I think the Nation’s quote of him on the topic points out something that may be true, which is that he might have balked at doing it given how many people would be laid off (hundreds of thousands, surely) and what the optics of that would be, though I kinda doubt the quote itself.

But yeah, even if he’d been gung-ho behind it, it wasn’t happening.