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Be Still My Beating Heart…
The White House has released a plan that details some pretty sweeping changes to the Executive Branch of our government. I have not yet had a chance to read the entire document from the OMB, but included are the following major changes:
- Combine the Departments of Education and Labor streamlining the bureaucracy and eliminating many redundancies.
- Consolidate the many different Food Safety agencies into one department into the USDA eliminating the FDA and HHS oversight of these areas — again eliminating many redundancies and reducing the bureaucracy.
- Divest and privatize the energy transmission GSAs in the Department of Energy such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Western Area Power Administration eliminating federal involvement in owning and operating energy transmission assets.
- Privatize the Postal Service.
- Ending the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie and reducing their overall impact on the mortgage and housing market
There are more. Mostly small-ball stuff compared to these five rather major changes (unless I’m misreading; again I haven’t read through the entire document) but I have to say: Wow! Be still my beating heart. This is the kind of conservative reform we should all get behind, and kudos to POTUS and the rest of his staff for proposing these kinds of reforms.
Then again this sort of thing has been tried before, by better men, and failed. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained. We should all support President Trump and his administration in their mission to streamline and eliminate parts of the federal bureaucracy.
Published in Domestic Policy
If he can pull off one of these it’ll be amazing, both in accomplishment and results I’m sure.
Washington seriously hates messing with its bureaucracies, but Pres. Trump has pulled some surprises so far.
He might pull it off. Liberals have expended all their ammo, leaving them unable to escalate. And what do R’s have to lose by backing Trump at this point? The election calculus looks quite favorable for backing his agenda.
True enough, when just about everything is crisis life-or-death mode, they haven’t anywhere to go, especially the tactic gets so worn out.
No Congressional committee has eliminated a department they regulate/budget. I love the idea of improving government at the federal level, but I skeptical of Congress. There is a slight chance that GOP’s lack of seniority in House will allow the right thing to happen. Fingers crossed!
You just can’t resist taking a swipe at the Trump supporters, can you? (clown nose off)
Nah- Reagan is a free pass in my book. Of course he’s the better man. But I agree with Jamie, and am hoping that this agenda succeeds. It would be amazing.
Nobody ever knows when I’m joking. To quote someone else I recently read: “…its not my fault.”
I’m hoping for more after the new Congress is sworn in. Move EPA to Oklahoma. HUD to Detroit. Maybe Ed to Detroit of it is not gutted.
DC is a poison factory. Clean it out.
I’m guessing that someone decided that this isn’t the best time to reorganize Homeland Security.
Give the guy credit. He’s not shy about busting up old orthodoxies. Maybe it’s what we needed.
And the left’s heads begin to explode….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1jf2hOkec4
I approve of any effort to streamline and minimize the bureaucracy, but what is the logic behind combining Education and Labor? Is it with the long term goal of eliminating both? Pretty please?
This would be great! If something like this passes and Trump nominates another Gorsuch justice to replace Kennedy I got to say I may find myself motivated to vote for him and I do not say that lightly and with the caveat that there is a lot of time left in his term…
We received an All Hands memo from the NASA administrator that they are going to examine if they can spin off the centers to all be structured like our relationship with JPL. The term of art is called a Federally Funded Research Center (FFRC) where every one on site, except the contract TO and financial officials are the only Federal Employees. Typically a academic organization become the employer (Cal Tech is JPL’s masters) for the work force.
This arrangement will allow for removing the employees from the retirement system (however most are on FERS and pay SS, not like the cushy CSRS). Should be easier to hire and fire folks (not that we have much in the way of unmotivated need to fire problems). The real plus is we won’t be hampered by the really clunky government procurement regulations, which is the number one reason we lose our younger engineers (because bysintine does not begin to describe this ossificed cow when purchasing high tech stuff quickly). It also means that they won’t be limited to the GS scale, which while it is very generous to most civil servants drones, typically runs 15% to 20% less than what folks who move on to the private sector can easily receive. The back side of that is far less security during the inevitable downturns in business.
More Reinventing Government™️. It going to be interesting, glad I am close to the gold watch.
Great proposals, but I’m not holding my breath. Each of those bureaucracies has a well-organized constituency that will be lobbying “our” representatives for the status quo.
Bureaucracies never are streamlined. It’s like trying to smooth a whet stone; doesn’t work. Redundancies either aren’t, or won’t be eliminated. The main effect this will have is that it’ll keep everyone in those two departments busy and miserable for a good long while.
I’m 100% on board with this.
I’ve been waiting for #5 for a while now. I’ve done some work at Freddie post Enron/pre bailout. In 2008 it became apparent that they were in bed with the Democrats (well actually before that but in 2008 it became hard for the MSM to not report it). I predicted then that if we ever saw a Republican House, Senate and Executive that their days as a government supported enterprise (GSE) would be numbered.
I feel exactly the same way. I’m a third Justice away from ordering a MAGA hat.
If any of these happen, that is something to celebrate!
I don’t even have a MAGA hat. Guess I should get one!
Reduction, if not elimination, of executive agencies was my greatest hope for this administration. If they have been carefully planning best methods for months and pursue goals like these the next few years, I will be pleasantly surprised.
I must have gone to sleep and awakened in a parallel universe.
lol, I was kind of thinking the same thing. It’s a nicer universe, isn’t it? :)
I would be amazed if they did any of this. I am not really certain doing this will really result in any real gains. I expect a reshuffling of the deck chairs at best, and a hot mess of disorganization at worst. We haven’t seen a lot of beurocratic competence from this administration, and everyone will drag their feet rather than see their department gutted. Plus you need to pass laws to change these things don’t you? Congress is less than useless in this respect certainly until 2019.
We are all #MRGA!
Trump is the greatest president of our lifetimes–maybe of our entire history. Thanks to the OP author: lo, there is more joy over the lost penny..
Woooooo!
I wonder if this will include a way to stop HUD from ending up with foreclosed residential properties resulting from government guaranteed loans that have defaulted. I don’t have any numbers but I can’t help but think the taxpayers are absorbing big hits when the government makes lenders whole and then sells properties for a pittance.
Oh NO-es! This is heresy to many inside the Beltway. How will Senator Sally Doe get a job for her nephew over at the FDA as reward for her overlooking her constituents’ concerns about genetically modified wheat or alfalfa should that agency and others like it go extinct?
Congress will have to go back to the good old days when the quid pro quo involved meeting someone in a back alley and grabbing up the suitcase filled with cash.
I hope that removing the BLM from the West, and especially from Arizona, and Oregon is on the list.
Regards from a disgruntled Arizona resident of the Federal Colony of Arizona.