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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
#2-5 are great of course.
But combining the Departments of Labor and Education is a huge folly. Not only does it give fresh cover to the cockroaches but it sends an appalling message about the nature of education and the government’s interest in it. “Education” does not equal job training. They should absolutely not be conflated in this way so as to encourage even the best of politicians in this fallacious assumption.
What is the point of education if not to prepare you for gainful employment?
I personally think the only reason for government involvement in training or teaching people things should be to qualify individuals to function in society. Education is a different matter altogether.
This is the appropriate role for the government in what we commonly refer to as ‘public education’. I would label it ‘public training’ and reserve the term education for other things.
It’s a quibble but I think the point of education is to develop the mind for maturity not just for employment. That maturity, along with skills and raw knowledge then prepare one for gainful employment. The needed skills aren’t limited to ones taught in school and the specific skills and specific knowledge required for a job are best and most efficiently delivered by any private entity other than government. As long as we do conflate education and training for corporate citizenship the education of a free mind tends to be devalued and discarded. And then we get ludicrous man-on-the-street interviews with people who don’t know the basics of government and supposedly educated people ridiculing constitutional recognition of certain inalienable rights.
Jamie deserves credit here. I liked his post, and support what he has to say. I am not now going to fuss on other things, and, I expect to argue with Jamie again on stuff in the future.
Agreed. But I am a little concerned…next thing we know, Jamie is going to label Trump his BBF and start posting about their new bromance.
If Jamie is starting an unexpected bormance, it better be with me!
Only if it’s a goatee.
Let’s not get all pouty, Bryan
Jokes are like classified information. I could explain it to you, but then…..I’d have to kill you!
That may be one of the ideas wherein our schools have fallen into a death trap. A truly educated person can adapt to a variety of jobs or tasks.
Before this is all over even rob long will be doing the never come down in a MAGA hat.
Calling the President a sociopath is tantamount to declaring to the world, “I am not a psychiatrist, much less Trump’s psychiatrist, but I like using words I don’t understand to describe people I don’t know.”
I know. Apparently, he claims to have read all of Donald Trump’s books, and his diagnosis is based on that: I haven’t read any of Donald Trump’s books, and don’t intend to, which is why I don’t bother getting into it.
Learning stuff.
Fair enough. But what is the point of other people paying for your education if not to prepare you for gainful employment?
I’m not against some of my tax dollars being paid for people to learn stuff. If it’s just for gainful employment, the private sector should do it and the govt should butt out. If it’s learning for the sake of learning, it’s appropriate for some public help, although IMO it has become way too dependent on federal funding these days. (BTW, I think people like Margaret Thatcher, Newt Gingrich, and C. Northcote Parkinson all made the same point with respect to funding for research.)
The cotton pick’in hold up was with three Republicans in Congress who voted with the Dems. (One being McCain, the other was Susan of New England, I’m forgetting the third.)
Rand “It didn’t go far enough” Paul
Thanks. Hard for me to keep up from overseas.
Thank you too.
Hard to believe about him. I thought he had enough common sense to take victories where you can get them. S.A.D.
I’m quite happy about his personnel choices…(The more Marine minds, the better, etc.)
That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. ;-)