Sunday, March 18, 2012
Big Government Enumerated
Wonder where much of the tax revenues go?
This is a site that lists all of the federal agencies currently in the US government.
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/index.html
It is the LSU Libraries Federal Agency Directory. At one time they posted a count of such agencies as 1,177, but in the latest version they ducked the question and referred the reader to the US Directory, based on the difficulty of defining government entities and ranking them properly. There is the possibility that this was a politically driven decision simply to make it difficult to determine the current extent of agencies without actually counting their names in the registry, which is tedious at best. So, I believe that the number is perhaps 10% higher now than in a few years ago when it was 1,177. Obamacare alone is supposed to add another hundred or two to this list.
When we speak of limited government, I believe we should examine this enormous set of agencies, committees, bureaus, commissions and the like for: mission and regulation overlap; budgetary necessity; general need for their existence, and the possibility of combining and simplifying their actions, thus perhaps saving a lot of money.
It was stated some time ago that to obtain approval of a new nuclear power plant, one has to submit plans and impact studies for approval to over 23 agencies, any one of which could block the effort. Since the heads of many of these agencies are politically appointed positions, the current political party in office has an enormous impact on approving who can do what, where and when in the nation. Then, too, unions in the federal government can have a significant impact on the ability of this huge collection of bureaucrats to perform their jobs efficiently, whether needed or not.
This is a site that lists all of the federal agencies currently in the US government.
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/index.html
It is the LSU Libraries Federal Agency Directory. At one time they posted a count of such agencies as 1,177, but in the latest version they ducked the question and referred the reader to the US Directory, based on the difficulty of defining government entities and ranking them properly. There is the possibility that this was a politically driven decision simply to make it difficult to determine the current extent of agencies without actually counting their names in the registry, which is tedious at best. So, I believe that the number is perhaps 10% higher now than in a few years ago when it was 1,177. Obamacare alone is supposed to add another hundred or two to this list.
When we speak of limited government, I believe we should examine this enormous set of agencies, committees, bureaus, commissions and the like for: mission and regulation overlap; budgetary necessity; general need for their existence, and the possibility of combining and simplifying their actions, thus perhaps saving a lot of money.
It was stated some time ago that to obtain approval of a new nuclear power plant, one has to submit plans and impact studies for approval to over 23 agencies, any one of which could block the effort. Since the heads of many of these agencies are politically appointed positions, the current political party in office has an enormous impact on approving who can do what, where and when in the nation. Then, too, unions in the federal government can have a significant impact on the ability of this huge collection of bureaucrats to perform their jobs efficiently, whether needed or not.
Labels: Government, Government Overhaul
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