Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
What Departments Would You Dissolve?
What three federal government departments would you immediately dissolve, if you could? Feel free to offer an explanation of why or just list them.
The three that I’d eliminate:
- Department of Education
- Housing and Urban Development
- Homeland Security
DOE, self explanatory. Get the federal government out of college financing. End the the “free money” manipulation game for High Schools, Colleges, and College students. Colleges would need to model themselves after Hillsdale or shutter their doors.
HUD, Fannie and Freddie…
Homeland Security, created in 2002 and already the third largest department. Just leads to further bloating of our anti-terror programs.
So, Ricochetti what are the first three departments that you would dissolve?
Published in General
Why limit it to three? I would only keep four…after I had renamed DoD back to the Department of War. Then, State, Treasury, and the Office of the Attorney General. If those four were good enough for Washington, they would be good enough for me.
All of them with no link to 1787. And I would reinstate the Department of War.
I’d be happy going back to the initial four!
Just wanted to make the transition a little incremental.
Incrementalism is for the other guys. Hit ’em with the brickbat.
Add Interior, Labor and Agriculture to your list and we’re up to a good start.
Cabinet level?
Education
Labor
Homeland Security
Keep the Forest service and dissolve Agriculture,
Keep the Park Service and dissolve Interior
Keep the census and dissolve USDOC
Keep NRC and disolve Energy
Keep the Services and dissolve DOD
Keep the Foreign Service and dissolve State, USAID USIS, and the foreign services of Treasury, Agriculture, and FBI. Cut the Foreign Service by half.
Keep most of it’s parts but dissolve homeland Security and cut them all by half
Keep nothing and dissolve Education, Labor and HHS
Take all regulatory authority from the Fed and give it one objective, price stability. Cut it by half and give it a monetary rule.
At least these are good places to begin.
The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial? ;)
That’s the way to clean up the mess!
Yes, I was thinking at the cabinet level. The list would grow ever larger if we included the various agencies, commissions, etc.
EPA
Don’t forget the EPA.
See how much easier my way is? You don’t have to remember all the current ones, just the few that you’re going to keep.
Education, Education, Education.
People who want to eliminate Homeland Security need to be a bit more specific about what to do with the component agencies. It’s all well and good to eliminate CPB and the Secret Service (among others), but what’s the plan, if any, to replace them.
Concerning Homeland Security, we had the secret service long before HS was established. The secret service was established in 1865; HS in 2002. HS is mostly a retread of DOD, I think if we eliminated it any purpose it serves would easily be taken up by DOD.
-EPA
-Dept of Education
-Interior
-Labor
Let’s get back to basics. And while we are at it, let’s send every last one of the senators and congressmen home and start over with citizen legislators who have to go back home within a specified time and live under the cockamamie laws they pass.
OK, but my point is that Homeland Security is made of nine (?) component agencies. One needs to be a little clearer if one wants to just break up the agency and redistribute its duties or whether one wants to eliminate its duties altogether.
OK.
Eliminate the TSA.
Merge the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Customs and Border Protection, and US Citizenship and Immigration Services into one agency. That merger, if executed properly, would reduce staff.
Eliminate FEMA.
Same question here.
Yeah, I agree that it’s hard to limit it to just three.
Looking at the list, I think I’d be entirely comfortable eliminating any department established after 1850. The exception is Defense, but only because that one replaced the old War Department.
I’m tempted to say eliminate all of them and make Congress reauthorize (and fund) the ones that we really need.
And implement zero-based budgeting. No more automatic annual budget increases.
Yes! The last time I flew, the TSA agent searched my ponytail and ruined my hair.
EPA and HHS.
Department of education
Bureau of land management
EPA (does that count?)
I think that EPA is a given, and allowed. I think that they are under the control of the USDA or Interior? But yes, EPA most definitely must go!
Energy, Homeland Security, and Education.
I think the obvious answer to the query ‘why limit it to three’ is the techno imposed limit of a maximum of 250 words….sheez…
Another way to ask the question, and certainly stay within the three item maximum, would be: “name the three departments you’d like to keep.” Much easier…
IRS – we need a new system of tax collection – has become corrupt
EPA – something’s very wrong – has become corrupt – start over
Department of Education – Common Core, not allowing states control over their schools, poor school building conditions, terrible mandatory lunches, too much testing, not allowing teachers to teach and be creative, something’s wrong here – needs a do-over.
These would be my three as well.
Edit: My idea of a new system of tax collection would be to repeal the 16th amendment and fund the federal government from money collected by the states. I would eliminate the ability of the federal government to tax the people directly. The states could decide how much to fund the federal government. This is the one part of the Articles of Confederation that we should have kept.
I say just eliminate it. Fifty state agencies (if every state chooses to have one) is sufficient.
On a related note, I would also say to eliminate the position of “Ambassador to the United Nations” but that may be hard to pull off. Instead, assuming I could not get the genuine article, as President I would require whoever I placed in that position to wear a Bozo the Clown outfit to all official functions related to his/her job.
[That may be a more enduring statement tha[n] just dropping out…and I like the optics of it.]