List of proposed changes

nj.com ^ | 6/6/02

[knak]

Mineta was consulted in advance, said spokesman Chet Lunner. There are 36,000 people in the Coast Guard, which rescues boaters in addition to patrolling ports and offshore platforms and tracking smugglers and drugs.

[ClaireSolt]

I am a little amazed at suspicions about losing liberty. I would say that we have little now. There is precious little oversight of these agencies now-- what with the whoring Congressmen think is more important than oversight. Not to mention the misplaced prioity of the wire taps and surveillance of the whorehouse in New Orleans

Debating this reorganization will let us know everyone who is active now. Putting someone in charge of it all may well increase our liberty.

I don't think many know all the nefarious and even illegal things these agencies that we have never heard about are doing now. Don't think the ACLU will help you. They are just a poor little organization with active PR to raise funds for their cause of the year.

By the way, President Bush did mention that eliminating duplication and overlap would save money. They may not have many layoffs, because one half of the federal workforce is slated to retire by 2005.

[Lazamataz]

And is Tom Ridge the man to head it up? My vote is for Rudi Guilani.

Giuliani may be a liberals RINO, but he'd be good in this post. 1) It would be personal. 2) He's really good at law enforcement issues, his cockeyed 2nd amendment stance aside.

[rwfromkansas]

Actually, this is revenue neutral and is taken care of in the budget since most of the cost for this agency is simply coming out of the budgets from other agencies. This is what makes it so freaking wonderful....we are getting "another agency," which we absolutely need, with barely any more spending.

[Lazamataz]

What is to prevent this new "re-org" and (assuming) larger "security" department from NOT turning out like another BATF?

BATF is a special case of an agency run amuk. Not even the DEA or FBI is as bad as them, and those two are pretty bad.

BATF is widely known as a place where you can dump incompetant people. I don't think they want screwups in this new agency.

[rwfromkansas]

It is also a brilliant political move....posts on another thread indicate even the idiots at DU understand how ingenious Bush is for shoving this down Congress' throat.

[AGreatPer]

"just that it could be a positive side-effect of this new department"

Ok, I'll go along with no people count cut. This looks then like more Pork Barrel legislation to be located in (this is an exclusive) Morgantown, West Virginia.

Dahh, who did West Virginia vote for?

I am saying it now. THIS IS A DISASTER. It will NOT capture and disable the terrorists. Pure, pure pork.

One White Elephant replacing another White Elephant.

[rwfromkansas]

I am betting in the restructuring, some people will go.

[Tauzero]

Redundancy is not an unalloyed evil. And eliminating it is not an unalloyed good.

For example, it is probably a good thing humans have two kidneys.

In the case of government, redundancy frequently results in rivalry. Admittedly, rivalry can get in the way of competing agencies performing their duties. That is a good thing, when their duties injure liberty. When their duties are beneficial to liberty, rivalry helps them stay true to their duty. Each rival helps keeps the others honest.

As is usual in most things, it is a trade-off, and the optimal amount of redundancy should be carefully sought.

[rwfromkansas]

It is budget neutral.

[rwfromkansas]

He didn't mention it. As long as somebody is working on it (they are), I am not too upset about this.

[Bush2000]

I have enacted my own personal boycott. I now drive to business meetings up to 8 hours away. Further than that, I pick up the phone. I have not flown since before 9/11, and I refuse to do so until the man or woman piloting my vessel has the ability to kill pirates on the spot. And I work for an airline.

Oh, puh-lease. That's certainly your choice but, frankly, I'd rather go down fighting than give up the ease and convenience of flying. I mean, really, they've won when they can make you so scared that you decide to stay home.

[Daus]

Thompson was told of the president's plans Wednesday, an HHS official said. The plan was to affect about 300 agency workers and $4 billion per year .

Just how do 300 people manage to spend $4 BILLION per year??

[Starwind]

The job undoubedtly requires a law-enforcement, security aware kind of background.

It is also a huge bureaucratic reorganization, needful of an extremely aggressive corporate executive COO type, of which Ridge may have more the Guliani, but I doubt either has enough to pull this off.

I could see Ridge in a Cabinet Head post, with a deputy (TBD) extremely strong in organizational skills implementing Ridges/Bush's policy.

[cva66snipe]

Your point is well taken, but consider in large Federal bureacracies, our freedoms are actually lost to the bureaucrats, not the President or Congress necessarily. Wouldn't consolidation of the bureacratic mess make it easier for Congressional and Judicial oversight? Wishful thinking perhaps, but I am hoping to see a possibility that the giant bureacracies, their inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, corruption and oppressive powers, just MAY actually be a little more tightly controlled this way. I have no idea, but I AM trying to find some good here to offset the natural fears and suspicions that arise for me.

Given the fact that many federal agencies are not necessary and this just creates yet another one which will likely like the EPA, Treasury, Interior, Energy, and Education Dept, create it's own new rules and regulations for us to live by I'm leary of it. We are creating more agencies to oversee agencies that over see other agencies. It's like making more laws sooner or later you become saturated in them and none are effective. This is somewhat a taking of many agencies that we don't need and combining there strenght. How many more federal policing agencies must we have?

[Reagan Man]

>>>It is budget neutral.

Yea, that's what was said.

We'll see.

[rwfromkansas]

Geez, you people are insane.

[AGreatPer]

"I am betting in the restructuring, some people will go."

I never thought deeper, you could be right. Sorta like a sideways move to get rid of some dead wood. I hope you are right. One of the problems in our Government employee sceme is blood suckers. And, they are everywhere.

[cva66snipe]

One way to address it would be to push for a Fed Reserve type of appointment,

The only thing is that takes matters out of our control as voters also. I wouldn't trust Clinton appointees either. At least with elections there is a dim hope of seeing someone out of office.