How to Eliminate Almost Every Federal Agency: Here's the List.

This week, the Heartland Institute offered up a modest proposal: Eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency's 15,000-person staff, move the headquarters from Washington to Topeka, Kan., and reload it with 300 state delegates.

The policy brief from the libertarian think tank that promotes climate skepticism—written by Heartland science director Jay Lehr—is something of a dream scenario for tea partiers and other conservatives, who would like a smaller government and a chance to wipe clean EPA's federal regulations. Lehr writes that "incremental reform of EPA is simply not an option," hence his proposal for a "Committee of the Whole" made up of state delegates that could slash 80 percent of EPA's budget.

It's hardly the first time conservatives have proposed trimming the government with an ax rather than pruning shears. Plenty of departments big and small have found themselves on the hypothetical chopping block for total elimination. Here's a look at some of the proposals to clear out the Cabinet room.

Note: The buzzkills at the Congressional Budget Office said in a 2013 report that eliminating entire departments may not yield savings. "At best," CBO wrote, "simply transferring programs to another department might reduce administrative support costs, but in most cases, such costs are much smaller than the costs of direct program activities."

1. Commerce Department: An easy target for those hunting federal-department game, Commerce is always in someone's sights. In 1995, the Department of Commerce Elimination Act cleared a committee in the Newt Gingrich-led House, and a 1996 nonbinding budget resolution that passed both chambers also called for eliminating the department. Under the 1995 bill, trade programs would have been consolidated under a new "Office of Trade," while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be parceled out to agencies like the Interior Department or Fish and Wildlife Service.

Oddly enough I disagree, but only because there is a need for “finesse” downgrading.

To start with, many federal employees have broken the law and need to either be prosecuted, or at least fired and barred from future employment with the federal government. Likewise, a vast number of regulations need to be formally overturned in a way to minimize harm if there is the potential for harm. Therefore, a cabinet officer will have to manage the scuttling of each agency, to insure it is done properly. Likewise, duties of that agency that are worthwhile need to be shifted to other agencies.

Start with the EPA: instead of firing everyone, change their primary mission to superfund clean up. While largely forgotten, there are still parts of the US with severe, intensive and extensive pollution that needs to be policed up or else it will eventually start hurting and killing people.

Education Department: While the school lunch program has been piggybacked with hundreds of onerous and unrelated federal regulations, when it actually provides lunches for children, it is very popular. So Education should mostly be gutted, and the lunch program turned into block grants for the states, to use at their discretion.

Energy Department: DOE is responsible for important monitoring of nuclear materials and nuclear weapons, and is also needed for energy grid maintenance and protection. While it can be cut back, there are still some vital missions.

Interior Department: In need of a major contraction, this goes hand in glove with the return of most federal land takings back to the states. However, the US Geological Survey (USGS) is a vital part of interior, as is, I hate to say it, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which needs a major revamp, renegotiation of Indian treaties, including the creation of federal business law for the reservations.

Agriculture Department: This New Deal agency is another nightmare, but agriculture is so vital to our national security and prosperity that we have to have something in place. The scale of American agribusiness is immense.

Housing and Urban Development Department: This is one agency that needs to be kicked in the cajones and shown the door. All housing projects should be turned over to the states, and the HUD obsession with “fair housing” to the point of ridiculousness needs to stop.

Transportation Department: Every penny of gas taxes should only be used to build, support and repair federal highways. Different monies to maintain railroads and air travel. Though building airport hubs in rural areas with strict prohibitions against nearby development could be a huge boost to air travel, even if used solely for cargo.

Labor Department: There are some sub agencies here that need preservation.

Homeland Security Department: While this agency should be scrubbed, there are many sub agencies within that need to be scrubbed first. It will need a lot of management while being shut down.

Health and Human Services: This one will also need to be guided down. An awful lot of work.

The 17 Agencies of the US Intelligence Community. What a den of vipers.

The 100+ federal police agencies, whereas the US needs about a dozen.

Needed additions to the list: ALL Czars, and the federal courts need a major structural and procedural overhaul.

Oddly enough I disagree, but only because there is a need for “finesse” downgrading.

From George Washington's Farewell Address

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

If we start proposing and passing amendments to explicitly enumerate the powers they need to do only what really needs to be handled by the federal government, we can overturn Wickard v Filburn and get rid of the open-ended "substantial effects" doctrine that's become the catch-all claim of constitutional authority by Congress.

The founding fathers also recognized the truth that efforts are made to subvert the written law even before the ink is dry, which is why they made the constitution a masterpiece of the balance of powers among bodies of men with conflicting interests.

Over the past 100+ years, the progressive movement used the slow momentum of gradualism, punctuated by acute actions, followed by rigid defenses of “change” to get their way.

Disassembling that will not be easy, requiring both a majority of congress and a determined and stubborn president. And it will be a threefold enterprise of overlapping activity: stripping the government of power, forbidding that misuse of power in the future, and restructuring the government away from such abuses.

Such things cannot be done with a single constitutional amendment, or a dozen.

The way around this will most likely be a major SCOTUS decision that differentiates between organizational clauses and secondary clauses of general principles which do not by themselves authorize organization outside of the organization clauses.

Joseph Story wrote this, from Commentaries on the Constitution. It's in reference to the Commerce Clause, but speaks to federal powers in general:

The question comes to this, whether a power, exclusively for the regulation of commerce, is a power for the regulation of manufactures? The statement of such a question would seem to involve its own answer. Can a power, granted for one purpose, be transferred to another? If it can, where is the limitation in the constitution? Are not commerce and manufactures as distinct, as commerce and agriculture? If they are, how can a power to regulate one arise from a power to regulate the other? It is true, that commerce and manufactures are, or may be, intimately connected with each other. A regulation of one may injuriously or beneficially affect the other. But that is not the point in controversy. It is, whether congress has a right to regulate that, which is not committed to it, under a power, which is committed to it, simply because there is, or may be an intimate connexion between the powers. If this were admitted, the enumeration of the powers of congress would be wholly unnecessary and nugatory. Agriculture, colonies, capital, machinery, the wages of labour, the profits of stock, the rents of land, the punctual performance of contracts, and the diffusion of knowledge would all be within the scope of the power; for all of them bear an intimate relation to commerce. The result would be, that the powers of congress would embrace the widest extent of legislative functions, to the utter demolition of all constitutional boundaries between the state and national governments.

That statement is accurate, and has been since FDR’s time, with its ridiculously intrusive and authoritarian government actions, that even FDR himself compared to “some of the things” done by the Soviets and even the Nazis.

And, it should be noted that FDR threatened the Supreme Court when they objected to these tyrannies, and to a great extent, they have been cowed ever since. So, to reverse the problem, the solution must unravel it, starting with the Supreme Court.

By splitting the organizational parts of the constitution from the general statements of philosophical ends, much of this would be accomplished both in the near term and in the future.

I’ll add as a final note that the Democrats still cling to LBJ’s general welfare clause as the justification of much of their behavior, like Obamacare, because the commerce clause abuses have been steadily whittled away since FDR, so do not have the radical ‘teeth’ that does the general welfare clause.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.