What Department(s) of our Government are you for keeping around?
Submitted by NavyVetForRP on Sat, 11/03/2007 - 09:02As for me I'd have to stick with the Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, Department of the Treasury, NASA, the State Department, Department of Transportation, Department of Justice and I'd keep around The National Science Foundation. This is why...
The department of defense is the most important (in my humble opinion). Our brave men and women of the armed forces have served our proud country magnificently (with just a few eceptions). I would increase funding for completive R&D contracts to equip the soldiers, sailors and marines with the most state of the art equipment available. Then give them a raise to boot!
I would keep the department of commerce and increase its budget so it could include new technologies to inspect every piece of goods that enter our ports and higher on the manpower to do so. Doing so will create many new jobs when increasing our national security.
I would keep the department of treasury and restore it to its former glory by outright dissolving the Federal Reserve.
I would continue to fully fund NASA but mandate them to work jointly with private corporations that have similar interests. I would also and mandate by the end of my term as president that we will land a man on Martian soil, as well as establish a permanent lunar base.
I would keep the Department of Justice around only to arbitrate contract disputes as outlined in the constitution.
The National Science Foundation only because I believe it is the right thing to do. I see it as encouraging fresh ideas and at the same time a unique forum for debate on those fresh ideas.
These are the few departments I would keep standing if I were the good Dr. What would your choices be?
only 3
I would keep the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Treasury. Defense heads up the military, Justice represents the federal government in a court of law, and Treasury pays the bills. Everything else I would scrap. And all 3 departments would abide by the Constitution.
I think I would agree.
I think I would agree.
Support and Defend the Constitution!
Which to keep?
The only Department to keep is the "Department of humbling the smartasses that said the Revolution had no chance". Line'em all up, tag'em, then send them to Cuba.
Well, here's one to cut!
Only because no one’s mentioned it yet: I'm for cutting the Dept of Agriculture (and I’m from Iowa).
I think subsidies are about the worst idea possible: taking money from the people to pay for services that are not in demand. For some reason, the Dept of Energy is always front and center when talking about subsidies, while the Dept of Ag. seems to kind of slip out of view, even though their respective budgets are almost at the same level ($20-23 billion).
Another “blowback” from the Dept of Ag’s Food Bill is extremely low consumer prices of corn starch and corn syrup products (at the taxpayer expenses). This is one of the main reasons obesity and poverty now go together…for the first time in the history of man.
I don't think the federal
I don't think the federal government does anything useful. If it were not for the massive disruption that would come about from its cancerous entrenchment in the fabric of society, it could be entirely done away with.
No brainer
Whatever departments President Ron Paul wants to keep in.
No department and no branch.
No department and no branch.
Zachary Hensley
Philosophy Dept
University of Iowa
Is CFR a department?
Yes. I would get rid of CFR, the Tri-lats, and the BilderBee's. There I said it.
Semper Fortis
http://www.jbs.org/
Semper Fortis
LOL
.
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There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
1. Soap
2. Ballot
3. Jury
4. Ammo
Please use in that order.
--Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Friedman and Rothbard
I like Milton Friedman's views on which departments we should have and which not.
Here's a link to a very good video where he describes and explains his views:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/uk/3411401.html
Please tell me what you think about it.
I also recommend Murray N. Rothbard's "For a new Liberty". It has some very good explanations why government should be out of virtually everything. You can listen to it as an audiobook here:
http://www.mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID=87
the dept hls
I am for cutting the dept of homeland security... the second would be the IRS.. then the dept of education, then the dept of energy.
"Ineptocracy: a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confisc
Other than Constitutional Offices
I wouldn't keep any. Not to be harsh, but NASA is a white elephant (motto: "Blowing up schoolteachers since 1985"), founded in a fit of cold-war hysteria over Sputnik, and the cold war has been over for twenty years.
And while I appreciate your security concerns over shipping, bringing our soldiers home from the Middle East is a much more effective way of reducing resentment in the Islamic world than trying to examine every one of the billions of shipping crates that arrive at the scores of ports in our country. And it's even more unrealistic for product safety. Expecting the Dep. of Commerce to inspect every crate of chinese crap being dumped on our market is unrealistic. Better to let Consumer Reports tell us what's safe and what isn't, than government, which would need a map to find its own butt. Tainted meat recalled a month late, anyone? Lead paint in toys? Antifreeze in toothpaste? All scandals, none of them prevented by government, and all of them reported by the free market press, instead of government, competing to bring consumers the most important news of the day. The free market will handle it, and much better than government.
And what does the National Science Foundation do, exactly? Except maintain another government bureaucracy, that is? Not mandated by the Constitution? Gone.
So left is defense, considerably streamlined and brought home from all overseas commitments, commerce, treasury, and Justice. Anything more will require a Constitutional amendment. Oh, and the FBI and CIA, but only to keep an eye on the politicians. (joke)
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
Of couse
Our service men and women coming home is priority number one, after that goal is accomplished is when I would work for a efficient and effective solutions to port security. If anybody has any specific suggestions and or insights of any emerging technology pertinent to this subject it is welcome. I have done some thinking on NASA and completely privatizing it would be more prudent than what I previously stated. As for it's funding that wouldn't be a problem if it became a publicly traded company they won't frivolously waist money then since they will have stockholders to answer to. Come to think about it I don't even think that the National Science Foundation is part of the government. Isn't it a non-profit organization?
Amazing what a few hours of sleep can do to your cognitive processes. I was kinda outa it when i first started this one, not too obvious was it?
Yep. There are several
Yep. There are several relatively rinky-dink outfits that are increasingly close to achieving commercial space flight. We simply don't need government involvement there. If anything, government is slowing the progress of those private endeavors. Go away, Uncle Sam!
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There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
1. Soap
2. Ballot
3. Jury
4. Ammo
Please use in that order.
--Ed Howdershelt (Author)
From Music, to Cell Phones, to Space tourism.
What won't Richard Branson do?
Cutting Departments - What could Ron do?
Here is the truth - unfortunately when Ron Paul becomes President of the United States he is going to be lucky to cut 2 departments at best.
My choice: The Department of Education
The Department of Homeland Security
It is True that Congress
would have to be involved in cutting programs and departments. I would foresee that a Ron Paul presidency would clearly show what the citizens expect, and our Senators and Representatives would all of a sudden become strict constitutionalists! This will be fun to watch!
Cutting Departments
I recognize that officially abolishing departments requires Congressional legislation. But almost all of these departments we're talking about are under the Executive Branch. That means they answer to the President. If Congress is slow to abolish some useless bureaucracy, for instance the Dept of Education, couldn't the President just start letting the employees go? Lay off the employees, sell the furniture and office equipment, sell the buildings. We'd be left with a Secretary of Education with no staff and no facilities.
If Congress complains that the President isn't carrying out the laws, he can reply that his oath to the Constitution prevents him from administering a Department of Education, so he was forced by law to fire all of its employees.
Why couldn't President Paul cut the government down to its Constitutional size this way?
There's no need for an Energy Department, either...
But I'm with making Education priority-one to disappear. It's not even this Ron's promise, it was Ronald Reagan's. And the Department of Education, despite its even more bloated form, still educates 0 kids.
JMR
hard to tell...
very hard to tell exactly which organizations are over-blown with useless beauracracy and meaningless spending, and which ones really do a service for the people. i think ron paul's objective would not be to stamp out ALL aspects of these departments, but strip them down to the bear minimum requirement so as to help those who are still dependent on these institutions. the free market can accomplish a lot more than you or I think, it just has to be given a chance to work!
a simple test
It's actually easy to determine whether a government bureaucracy is useless or provides a valuable service. One where the users willingly pay a price that covers all the cost is one that provides a service somebody wants. Those that operate purely on tax funding cannot show that anybody values the service, because no one is willingly paying for it. People may line up to use it because they perceive it to be free, but of course robbing some to benefit others is unjustifiable.
Most any problem can be
Most any problem can be solved without government intervention. We need to always keep the purpose of government at the forefront of any such discussion. The purpose of government is, simply, to protect the rights of the individual. Anything above and beyond that is cruft.
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There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
1. Soap
2. Ballot
3. Jury
4. Ammo
Please use in that order.
--Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Which departments I would keep...
I went back to review the departments allowed the Executive Branch in the Constitution. There aren't any. Congress has power over providing defense, money, regulating commerce, establishing roads and post offices, creating courts inferior to the Supreme Court, declare war, etc.
I don't see that there are any departments under executive jurisdiction.
There's Defense, Commerce, Treasury, Justice. All under the power of Congress, with heads of departments who send reports TO but not under the control OF the President.
That would free up all kinds of time for the President to actually be Head of State and greet with foreign ambassadors/elected officials if he wasn't trying to run every aspect of the country.
So, to answer the question in reverse, get rid of the following Executive Departments:
Department of Agriculture - get rid of entirely
Department of Commerce - give control back to Congress
Department of Defense - give control back to Congress
Department of Education - get rid of entirely
Department of Energy - get rid of entirely
Department of Health and human Services - get rid of entirely
Department of Homeland Security - get rid of entirely
Department of Housing and Urban Development - get rid of entirely
Department of Justice - back to the Congress
Department of Labor - get rid of entirely
Department of State - okay, maybe I see the point here, but the head would be the president, wouldn't it?
Department of the Interior - get rid of entirely
Department of the Treasury - back to Congress
Department of Transportation - get rid of entirely
Department of Veterans Affairs - back to Congress
While we're getting rid of departments, how about these under Congress:
-African Development Foundation
-privatize AMTRAK
-CIA
-Commission on Civil Rights
-Commodity Futures Trading Commision
-Consumer Product Safety Commission
-Corporation for National and Community Service
-Environmental Protection Agency
-Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
-Farm Credit Administration
-Federal Communications Commission
-Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
-Federal Housing Finance Board
-Federal Labor Relations Authority
-Federal Reserve System
-NASA
-National Council on Disability
-National Credit Union Administration
-National Endowment for the Arts
-National Endowment for the Humanities
-National Science Foundation
-NTSB
-Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
-Peace Corps
-Railroad retirement board
-Securities and Exchange Commission
-Selective Service System
-Small Business Administartion
-Social Security Administration
-Tennessee Valley Authority
-US Agency for International Development
-US Postal Service - why not privatize and allow competition?
-Nancy
hmmmm
i'm well on the way to converting my liberal* wife to libertarianism, and one of the ways i do this is: every time she espouses some unexamined feel-good program that "should" be administered by the government, i ask her, "How much is this gonna cost, and who do you think should be robbed at gunpoint to pay for it?"
So I ask you the same thing. Of all these alphabet agencies and departments you'd keep, from who are you willing to steal money to pay for them? Mind you, feel free to pay out of your own pocket to fund whatever programs you want...just don't tap mine.
*A liberal is someone who has HIS own ideas about how the world and people should act and function, but wants to force YOU to pay for it!
RE: hmmmmm
Those listed are the one's I'd keep after going down to what was outlined by the founding fathers.
You didn't answer his
You didn't answer his question. Who are you going to steal the money from? Please be specific.
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There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
1. Soap
2. Ballot
3. Jury
4. Ammo
Please use in that order.
--Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Here's a novel idea
From Tariffs on imported goods as the founding fathers intended. This encourages American business to stay in America, creating more well paying American jobs also as the founding fathers intended.
I'm open to any ideas that
I'm open to any ideas that do not involve me being robbed.
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There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
1. Soap
2. Ballot
3. Jury
4. Ammo
Please use in that order.
--Ed Howdershelt (Author)
"Free" Trade is BS
That is why China has us by the throat. They charge us a tariff on everything they buy from us, I say level the playing field. NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, and SPP will be gone. It's time to put America first again.
BIA
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has got to go! Individual Liberty means liberty for all Americans. Ron Paul: Abolish the BIA!
Native Americans have the right of self determination. They do not need nor want the BIA involved in every aspect of their lives.
Steve