The 109th Congress should:
- eliminate the Cabinet-level
Departments of Agriculture, Interior,
Transportation, and Veterans
Affairs;
- close down major independent
agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority,
the Small Business Administration, the Corporation for National and
Community Service, the Legal Services Corporation, and the Appalachian
Regional Commission; and
- terminate obscure independent agencies like
the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Japan–United
States Friendship Commission, the Marine Mammal Commission, America’s
Education Goals Panel, the State Justice Institute, and the United
States Institute of Peace.
A Future Congress should:
- abolish all bureaucracies
Coming out of the Convention Hall, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind
of government the delegates had hammered out for America. He is said to
have replied, "A Republic, madam, if you can keep it."
We have not kept it.
We have replaced a Constitutional Republic with
"the Administrative State," a form of
government which Madison, as he wrote in The Federalist, would have
called “the very essence of tyranny.”* The
size of government is as unconstitutional as it is incomprehensible.
These agencies do not manufacture goods which consumers would buy. With
few exceptions, they do not provide services which consumers would pay for
voluntarily. Those agencies that provide valuable services provide them
inefficiently, and privatizing
these agencies would increase competition, increase the variety and scope
of services, give consumers more options, and provide better services at a
lower cost.
Here is a list of many influential
federal agencies, departments, boards and commissions. Here
is a shorter list. These can be broken down into the following areas:
The Cabinet Departments
Major Independent Agencies
Obscure Independent Agencies
- Federal
bureaucracy thickening, study finds (7/22/04)
- "Despite the president's promise to bring businesslike thinking
to the federal government, the Bush administration has overseen, or at
the very least permitted, a significant expansion in the both the
height and width of the federal hierarchy," said Paul Light,
director of the Center for Public Service at Brookings and a professor
at New York University. "There have never been more layers at the
top of government, nor more occupants at each layer."
Read
full story
E. Corwin, Constitutional Revolution, Ltd., 13
(1941).
Has the Constitution Been
Suspended? -- The Rise of the "Administrative State"
I appreciate your comments
Do you disagree with me?
I will thoughtfully, prayerfully, respectfully and
personally respond to your criticisms
email: comments@KevinCraig.US
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