US Departments and Agencies

Hundreds of Them

Today I downloaded the index listing of US Departments and Agencies from USA.org. It was eleven pages in normal size print.  It included some state web pages I’ve edited out. It is my intent to review all of them to refresh my familiarity with what they think they are doing that citizens may want. Frankly, I’ve already seen many I would de-fund or cut substantially. What I’m going to do in future postings is summarize their mission and describe why I believe they should be cut severely or eliminated, and there are some that I’m suspicious of their value and constitutionally that may get in depth research. I’ve already discovered some I’ve never heard of and can’t imagine from their title what it is they could do for citizen-taxpayers.

It looks like about 250 of them, but it doesn’t seem to include many commissions, panels, boards and other activities I’ve heard of, but they may be within an agency or Department that is listed, like National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System. Or they have changed their name to hide. I’m sure they are in there; I just haven’t found them yet.

What follows are those I would immediately un-fund and disband, and perhaps absorb a few of their functions into other Departments or Agencies where they might be useful. In this posting I’ll try to pick one from each lettered section of the index for outright abolishment, gone, history, you’re out of there.

 Agricultural Marketing Service

5000 employees’ nation wide selling farmers products.

 Broadcasting Board of Governors (Voice of America, Radio
TV Marti and more)

 Commission of Fine Arts

 Department of Education (ED)

 Elementary and Secondary Education

 Farm Credit Administration

 Global Affairs (State Department)

Isn’t this the State Department’s whole purpose?

 Helsinki Commission (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe)

 Institute of Peace

 John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

 No K

 Lead Hazard Control (Housing and Urban Development Department)

 Millennium Challenge Corporation

 National Endowment for the Arts

 Office of Government Ethics

They’ve got to be kidding, they’ve heard of ethics?

 Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

 No Q

 Risk Management Agency (Agriculture Department)

 Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation

 Transportation Statistics, Bureau of

 U.S. Mission to the United Nations

This should be the State Department.

 Vietnam Educational Foundation

 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

 No X, Y or Z

I’m sure the people who work at these organizations and their sponsors are just positive their functions and services are important and even essential. If they are asked I would bet they would provide an elaborate, convoluted, important sounding and way too long of an explanation of why they are necessary.

I say, “If you can’t explain the need for it in two simple sentences or less, close it, it isn’t necessary!”