That's sarcasm, right? No one who has ever had to deal with even one agency would ever attribute any of the words you used to government or "civil servants".
You must have never worked for the government. If you had, you'd see the monstrous inefficiency and corruption. Billions of tax dollars going to nothing whatsoever.
Ah yes, corporations use resources much more efficiently with $40 million severance packages for CEOs that run the company into the ground. There's waste in government, no one argues that, but by and large, agencies are full of normal people who mostly try to do their jobs, just like any large organization. I personally have an easier time dealing with government agencies than with Comcast, AT&T, my bank, my health insurance, or whatever other big corporate bureaucracy controls much more of my life than the government does.
In 2022, the Pentagon was able to account for 39% of its 3.5 trillion dollar budget. A 40 million dollar wasted expense on a failed CEO would be a blessed, blessed relief to the taxpayer if that were the biggest problem federal agencies faced regarding waste, corruption, and inefficiency.
"Muh companies" is a lazy deflection from very serious problems in the despicably bloated layered carcasses of the governmental estate.
Corporations and governments are both bloated and wasteful.
The difference is that corporations can lose market share to nimbler competitors. If they fail for long enough, they will even cease to exist. But governments can't go out of business. They just accumulate waste and corruption until there is a revolution.
An ideal system would devolve more powers to local governments. This would allow people to "vote with their feet", leaving corrupt and inefficient governments behind. You can see this happen when people leave Detroit (for example) and go to better areas. But if the entire national government is corrupt, you can't easily move to a new country.
In addition to devolving powers, another useful reform would be zero-based budgeting, in which the default line item for every government expenditure is zero, and every dollar of spending must be be justified.
So, which would you get rid of. The FAA, perhaps? And then you’ll start to complain that the government is doing nothing about all the planes falling from the sky…
Haha! I totally thought to myself as I was doing it "Here's one that needs to go, that one never should have been made, here's another we need to get rid of..."
All with 1:42. I always was a spy freak. And a conspiracy theorist of sorts. But mainly just a spy freak. And I love EVERYTHING that ends in 'agency'. Especially if it gets an acronym.
All with 3:02 left. Thanks, bygone journalism career! Of course, many of these agencies will be gone soon enough too if the current administration gets its way.
With all these agencies and commissions protecting us why do we still have widespread diseases, natural disasters, rampant corruption and generally inefficient services?
Widespread diseases? like what? chlamydia? The CDC, WHO, and many other organizations do tremendous work preventing disease. If not for government intervention we'd still be living in a world with rampant polio, smallpox, and meningitis. Ebola, SARS, bird flu, and Zika would probably all have made it to the USA in large numbers. AIDS cases would still be growing rapidly instead of shrinking.
and while the government can only do so much to prevent natural disasters (effective measures to combat global warming would be a great start! and something only governments can do in a meaningful way), I'm sure the emergency response services that FEMA, etc provide have made quite a big difference to those who benefitted from them.
As for corruption, well, that's a little hard to combat when, instead of having politicians influenced by vile oligarchs, we just cut out the middle man and vote in a vile oligarch as president. Maybe in 2020...
Smallpox, though "eradicated" is still around. Measles are making a comeback, so are STD's and Zika remains a danger, particularly in the Southern states.
So, rampant corruption on the federal level didn't happen until the 2016 election? You may not have agreed with the results of that election but corruption was well in place before it. Politicians have pledged to fight it for almost as long as we've had elections, yet here it still is more pervasive than ever. Can't blame that one on the orange man.
It got very very much worse and more rampant in 2016 and you're blind or ignorant if you don't know that. This has nothing at all to do with "agreeing" with the results of an election...
Another of your comments that is interesting to see in hindsight, prescient while understated. Now in July 2024, the corruption of the once-respected GOP has come completely out into the open, with a Supreme Court created by the Federalist Society giving carte blanche to future presidents, especially the one most likely to return to power next January, to engage in unbridled lawlessness for four years, and possibly more.
@divantilya, if there's any group of people to blame for spikes in disease (in particular measles and COVID), it's anti-vaxxers, not the federal government.
Your comment from January 2019 is really interesting in hindsight, considering what happened a year after you wrote. How could you, I, or anyone other than an epidemiologist, have seen Covid coming?
And would run rampant if not properly watched and prevented from spreading by that vigilance and prompt action when needed by the right agencies so don't dis the agencies, they are there for good reasons.
With STDs that is no agency going to kick that without input into education of children and parents but they are only going to listen if there is reliable information to base it on. These agencies work to make sure what we know about diseases and how to prevent and treat them is accurate and up to date.
Public education campaigns against HIV/AIDS cut that down to minuscule numbers. Free clinics giving out antibiotics and free testing have kept incidence of things like chlamydia and syphilis fairly low. Development and deployment of the HPV vaccine will save thousands of women's lives in the future. Though the number of new cases of some diseases are increasing, mostly chlamydia and gonorrhea, probably among new immigrants and younger people who didn't live through the strong push for condom use in the 80s and are less likely to use them now, it's still less than 1% of the population affected each year. And one very likely culprit for the rise of new cases is decreased funding to state and local STD prevention programs - so, eliminating such programs all together is obviously not the answer.
It's not nearly as simple. The fact is, just because they don't impossibly destroy the problem, doesn't mean they are doing nothing. Like @kalbahamut said, many of these agencies are completing efficient tasks.
This is like asking why we have traffic fatalities even though we have seatbelts. You can't eliminate bad outcomes, but you can put measures in place to minimize them.
We can start with the Unhoused Persons Advocacy Group, Board to Fix Climate Change by ~~20XX~~ and counting, Self-Auditing Spending and Accomplishments Group...
No need to reduce taxes this year, we're busy making progress!
As a non-American, a lot of the departments listed are to do with defence and security rather than social services - is the US federal state a bit militaristic still?
The CIA gathers foreign intelligence, the FBI investigates domestic federal crimes, the NSA handles code breaking and cyber security, Veterans Affairs handles benefits for military veterans like healthcare, the Social Security Administration is like a pension program for retirees and has nothing to do with defense, Homeland Security works in counter-terrorism... all of these agencies have specific missions and several are actually part of the larger Department of Defense. It's not like Americans just like war so much they needed multiple redundant departments for it.
That's true, though I would also add that's largely what's called "mandatory spending." Among discretionary spending, the part lawmakers have more direct control over, military spending currently makes up about 43% (which is a bit of a low outlier compared to previous years).
Only advantage? Washington DC is probably my favorite city in America and its suburbs are rather nice too. IMO the only bad things about the city are the traffic and the politicians, and the latter is not something people interact with on a regular basis. If you don't like it though, I guess suit yourself.
The DHS was created because the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc... weren't talking to each other and thus completely missed the obvious signs that 9/11 was about to happen.
How adding yet another three letter agency on top of everything is supposed to help, I have no clue.
Any time there is a crisis, politicians want to "do something" which then just creates more cruft and inefficiency. These agencies are frequently created but as far as I know never go away.
Many have gone away or merged with other agencies. QM is some kind of crazy anarchist, who hates any talk of politics and so avoids it all costs leading to some... interesting... opinions on the subject, from what I gather.
We could have had a pure source of unbiased truth to believe via our Disinformation Governance Board Ministry of Truth. We are just not ready yet as a species I suppose :(
Maybe one more generation of college refined drones will get us there. Don't worry, if you don't want to pay for the $20k worth of "GE" courses, tax dollars from your fellow American Democrats, and Republicans, will happily encourage you to take the authorized brainwashing. Why spend your time and money furthering yourself in your selected area of study, when you can watch the provided films, learn about the approved philosophy, read the selected books... you need to be a well-rounded college graduate, of course.
"Muh companies" is a lazy deflection from very serious problems in the despicably bloated layered carcasses of the governmental estate.
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3219566/dod-makes-audit-progress-but-much-more-needs-to-happen-official-says/
The difference is that corporations can lose market share to nimbler competitors. If they fail for long enough, they will even cease to exist. But governments can't go out of business. They just accumulate waste and corruption until there is a revolution.
An ideal system would devolve more powers to local governments. This would allow people to "vote with their feet", leaving corrupt and inefficient governments behind. You can see this happen when people leave Detroit (for example) and go to better areas. But if the entire national government is corrupt, you can't easily move to a new country.
In addition to devolving powers, another useful reform would be zero-based budgeting, in which the default line item for every government expenditure is zero, and every dollar of spending must be be justified.
OSHA = Occupational Safety and Health Administration
USDA = United States Department of Agriculture
NIOSH = National Institutes for Occupational Safety and Health
and while the government can only do so much to prevent natural disasters (effective measures to combat global warming would be a great start! and something only governments can do in a meaningful way), I'm sure the emergency response services that FEMA, etc provide have made quite a big difference to those who benefitted from them.
As for corruption, well, that's a little hard to combat when, instead of having politicians influenced by vile oligarchs, we just cut out the middle man and vote in a vile oligarch as president. Maybe in 2020...
With STDs that is no agency going to kick that without input into education of children and parents but they are only going to listen if there is reliable information to base it on. These agencies work to make sure what we know about diseases and how to prevent and treat them is accurate and up to date.
We can start with the Unhoused Persons Advocacy Group, Board to Fix Climate Change by ~~20XX~~ and counting, Self-Auditing Spending and Accomplishments Group...
No need to reduce taxes this year, we're busy making progress!
https://www.jetpunk.com/quizzes/main-parts-of-the-us-budget
FY 2020: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57170
FY 2019: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56324
FY 2018: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55342
Probably the ONLY advantage to living here, but I digress.
How adding yet another three letter agency on top of everything is supposed to help, I have no clue.
Any time there is a crisis, politicians want to "do something" which then just creates more cruft and inefficiency. These agencies are frequently created but as far as I know never go away.
We could have had a pure source of unbiased truth to believe via our Disinformation Governance Board Ministry of Truth. We are just not ready yet as a species I suppose :(
Maybe one more generation of college refined drones will get us there. Don't worry, if you don't want to pay for the $20k worth of "GE" courses, tax dollars from your fellow American Democrats, and Republicans, will happily encourage you to take the authorized brainwashing. Why spend your time and money furthering yourself in your selected area of study, when you can watch the provided films, learn about the approved philosophy, read the selected books... you need to be a well-rounded college graduate, of course.