So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 08/31/2010 7:19:20 AM PDT by Rashputin
But of course it is only a start. Another prime candidate is the Department of Education. Like so much Washington bureaucracy, this behemoth is essentially one of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” (i.e., statist) institutions, a shil for the teacher’s union and enforcement agency for politically correct ideology It officially presides over a budget of nearly $67 billion and another $96.8 billion in “discretionary funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” (Did the person who wrote that smile as he set it down in black and white? “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” forsooth! “Anti-American Rapine and Redistribution Act” is more like it.)
I’ve been thinking of making this public service announcement recommending the closure of various governmental agencies for some time. What prompts me into action today is the news that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent around a email urging government employees to attend the rally that “Rev.” Al Sharpton organized to compete with Glenn Beck’s “restoring honor” tea-party rally this weekend. As an article in the Washington Examiner notes, the email does not violate the Hatch Act, which restricts partisan political activity of federal employees. But it does not look good. As David Boaz of the Cato Institute put it, “It sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department. It’s highly inappropriate . . . even in the absence of a direct threat.” Just imagine, Boaz continued, if a cabinet official in George W. Bush’s administration had sent an “e-mail to civil servants asking them to attend a Glenn Beck rally.” Hell to pay, what?
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
I think we have a right to know...
To this end, Soc. Sec. should be phased out, and we should become responsible for taking care of ourselves and our families.
Also, there should be no government pensions, but something similar to 401(k)s for gov't employees.
The author is off to a good start with the NEA. Add to that the FDA, EPA, BATFE, (<- note the comma) and just about all the other alphabet agencies, and we’ll be on the right track. Get government out of the marrying business, too.
I have to recommend HUD. I spent three long years there as a contract programmer. The lack of intelligence in that place is mind-boggling.
The Obamites prefer to start paring in the Defense Department and other functions specifically provided for in the Constitution.
NEA. DEA. BATFE. FCC. FAA. DOE.
http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml
The ones that bear no resemblance to anything in Art 1 sect 8 all need to go.
It’s not my personal opinion, where the Constitution is concerned... IT’S THE LAW.
NASA’s assets should be auctioned off to Lockheed, Boeing, and the folks at Space X.
Just looking at this headline, this could be the longest thread in Free Republic history. But it is a very timely subject and should be the focus on an updated Republican Contract With America for the upcoming mid-term campaigns.
Then again, maybe the focus should return to "The ONLY Things the U.S. Government should do and have control over" and eliminate everything else.
The Department of Eduction came into existence in 1980 under Jimmy Carter.
Back in the day, when I was doing some consulting work we would just yank everything a department had to do. Mostly in terms of reports. Just stop producing them. When someone asked, it went back on the list. Usually we found we were reproducing work at an alarming rate. We also found that one-off reports continued for years without anyone ever looking at them again. In the end, report production would be cut in half.
We should do the same with government: Stop doing everything. And when someone asks for it, consider restarting it. We would save trillions of dollars.
Defund all collecives...including foreign countries/collectives and corporate collectives.
Personally, I think our manned space program should fall under the administration of the Air Force (this would include missions to the Moon, and perhaps Mars, as there would be military advantage to have a moon base). Deep space exploration and scientific telescopes should be funded by the international scientific community.
Its really kind of easy.
Show the Dept. of Education a little graph, starting from the day of its establishment and running through the present that shows what it has achieved (precisely nothing). Then shut it down.
Do the same for the Dept. Of Energy - they have completely failed to reduce US dependence on foreign oil. Then shut it down.
Do this for each of the Cabinet groups beyond the original. Show them how much they have spent, and how little they have achieved - and shut them down.
Ending the DOE is a great place to start. All that’s needed at the federal level is a non-partisan board that sets standards for what children at each grade level should be achieving.
My dream however, is to make it illegal for Unions to contribute to any party or individual campaign AND to make it illegal for the Federal Government to provide any funding, for any purpose, from any department or legislative body to Unions. Cut their tap off!
Not to mention that idiotic "Space Treaty" which we foolishly signed off on. "Common good of all Mankind" my left foot. Very few folks in this group called "mankind" has anyone else's "common good" on their minds. Especially when it comes to keeping the rest of us under control.
Ask yourself this, would a Privately run venture really pay thousands for a toilet seats or hundreds for a standard hammer? How about spending a couple billion on an orbital tinker-toy set with no real economic focus?
Privatize it. We'll have hotels on the Moon within a decade.
Its food safety programs should be merged into the FDA, food stamps into HHS -- everything else should be dismantled.
I agree, the "space treaty" serves only to slow us down. Other nations will use it for toilet paper if it helps them out.
The costs you mention are a bit of a red-herring. They are the product of both over-specification of requirements by the government, and the paperwork it takes to ensure that the equipment meets requirements. Part of this is trying to eliminate risk in what is still a test program. Moving this back to the military using military "test pilots" instead of civilians could mitigate some of the costs.
I disagree that we would have any moon tourism within a decade. The economics are not there yet. Even with a bare-bones project and accepting higher risk, it is still too expensive to send people to the moon as tourists.
So we've got that going for us, which is nice.
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