Solution #1: Disperse the Bureaucracy
Did you know that five of the ten wealthiest counties in the US are suburbs of Washington DC? Does that make you angry? It should. It is a direct result of the unchecked growth of the governing class in our nation’s capital.
They create nothing, except taxes to keep them employed and wealthy, and regulations to keep us under their thumbs.
Bureaucracies are inherently slow to adapt to change; they are ineffective in achieving outcomes and are inefficient on a per dollar invested basis when compared to private sector alternatives; they are corrupted by political influences rather than prioritizing economic objectives; once established, they are focused to an absurd extent on the accumulation of power and the growth of its mass; and, if they are based almost exclusively in one location, they create an entrenched ruling class that lives within its own bubble fails to understand the people over which they exert control.
We can break up the massive, entrenched and often redundant DC bureaucracies by
- Eliminating entire departments, shifting those responsibilities to other departments or to the States,
- Slashing spending in others, reducing the scope of their activities, and
- Relocating what remains away from Washington through a competitive process among relevant cities.
Lip service to the contrary, most Republicans are no more interested in doing this than Democrats. Because they live in the same swamp, in places like my Republican opponent's home, Loudoun County, Virginia.
Let's use the Energy Department as an example. What does the DOE and its 109,000 employees and contractors do? (Click here to see the absurd org chart of the DOE)
- In short, the Energy Department has one critical function, the management of nuclear waste coming from the military's nuclear weapons program. No one would argue this doesn't need to be a government function. But it should be housed in the Department of Defense, not in its own bureaucracy.
- The DOE holds one important regulatory agency, the FERC, which regulates interstate natural gas and electricity transmission. This can be an independent agency, or can be reassigned to a different department, such as Commerce.
- Apart from these, the DOE is a science and technology research organization. These functions should be conducted by the private sector and by research universities, perhaps for a limited time granting a like amount of funding to such universities, then phasing those grants out to shift the economic burden to the private sector.
- By moving the handling of military nuclear waste to the Pentagon and making the FERC an independent agency, and eliminating the other functions, we can then eliminate the department.
- But if we are not successful in eliminating this department, at least we should disperse it to a location away from Washington DC. Why not ask Dallas, Houston, Tulsa and New Orleans, cities with ample expertise in energy issues, to compete for the relocation of this department?
We should go through this same process with each federal department. Not only will we save billions of dollars necessary to reduce our deficit spending; we will also break up the permanent ruling class that controls this country, that sends its kids to Ivy League schools and gets them jobs in their congressman's office, in DC lobbying, law firms and special interest groups, thus perpetuating the power of the ruling class.
This power does not need to forever reside in Washington DC. They have been ripping us off long enough.
