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More Change You Can Believe In


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I believe this is the position that BHO created to look at the efficiency of Govt programs, with an eye toward elimintating those which were not performing.

 

Looks like the first one to be examined should have been the Income Tax system and IRS...the Dems seem to have a real hard time figuring that one out.

 

Time for the Fair Tax!(This message has been edited by scoutldr)

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"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs once launched never disappear. Actually a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life that we shall ever see on this earth." -Ronald Reagan

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Aside from the ethical issues faced by these nominees, I am disturbed by the incompetence demonstrated by the Obama administration in even putting such appointments forward. One hopes that this is not a harbinger of things to come.

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The size of government, whether you look at it from a purely Federal viewpoint, or combined Fed/State/Local, is purely cyclic. If you look at the official data from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (table 17.5, it's called) you see that both went drastically down in Reagan's first years, then slightly up, finishing slightly above where he started.

 

Here's the Fed graph:

 

http://uucurl.com/x.php?p=2912

 

and here's the fed/state/local graph:

 

http://uucurl.com/x.php?p=2913

 

GWBush did better than I would have guessed, but I also believe that there is an extensive use of contractors throughout all of government that isn't reported here.

 

Reagan was the third best government shrinker in history, GWBush second place and Clinton first place. So both sides can feel good about it.

 

JFK oversaw the biggest growth, and certainly Obama is compared to him a lot (both positively and negatively), so it will be interesting to see what happens. I know that my local, county and state governments are all doing a lot of cutting now, and I don't think they're hiring a lot of contractors, so maybe that will offset any federal growth.

 

-Melg

 

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It would be difficult to outweigh bush's incompetence, what with attacking a country for having nonexistent weapons and failing to pursue a mass-murderer, among a host of other things.

 

As for nominees being withdrawn, anyone remember Linda Chavez as labor sec? Bernard Kerik for homeland security? David Palmer for EEOC? Me neither, but I knew it would be easy to find some, because it's the same for every administration.

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Linda Chavez was withdrawn as nominee for Secretary of Labor when Bush was first elected because she shot her mouth off in a way that Bush did not appreciate, not because of any tax or other ethical lapses.

 

Bernard Kerik did have bona fide issues. I don't recall if non payment of taxes were among them.

 

You will have to refresh my recollection about the controversy about the third person you named.

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Oh, so you're only going on about nonpayment of taxes? I thought you were concerned about ethical lapses. Chavez housed an illegal immigrant. Eight former DOJ said Palmer failed to enforce antidiscrimination laws.

 

Now are you only concerned over people who withdrew? I think there are plenty of ethical lapses with people like Alberto Gonzales.

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Merlyn_LeRoy -- plenty of blame to go around. Congress knew of Osama in 1987 -- or rather was informed (they were to busy being cute and humorous for media) of the threat. They ignored it. Clinton's admin. insisted that among the political prisnors in Isr , even those with blood on their hands be released. One named "Muhammed Atta" repayed us with taking out Tower One. All of our Political leaders need to get off self and buddies and concetrate on the country.

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I agree there's plenty of blame to go around. But throughout the years I've been in this issues & politics forum, there were seldom non-scout related discussions of presidential politics. Yet now that a Democrat has been president for all of two weeks, the non-scout related posts are dominant. I can't see a couple administration nominees being withdrawn for tax problems as somehow suddenly worthy of comment when years of Bush administration scandals got nary a peep. So forgive me if I view the political concerns of many of the posters here as being more a case of sour grapes because the Republicans lost.

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