Dreaded Details: On Chopping Away at the Federal Government
The Republicans find it difficult to campaign on chopping away at the Federal government. Let’s be honest here, Bush created one of the largest government agencies ever – the Depart of Homeland Security.
There was a time when Republican Presidential candidates proudly and vocally campaigned on dismantling the federal government. In 1980, Ronald Reagan called for abolishing the Departments of Education and Energy and criticized H.U.D.
And yet, in office, Reagan, while famously failing to recognize his own H.U.D. secretary at a reception, could not get rid of the department—or any other, for that matter.
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So even as Republicans move to the right and conservatives come to dominate the party, the politics of dismantling government have not become more hospitable for them. Even for the most right-wing candidates, the ones who do call for getting rid of large chunks of the government, it can be a hard issue to campaign on. Just ask poor Rick Perry . . .
Minor correction: every study I have ever seen says that DHS is not “one of the largest government agencies ever” but is hands-down THE largest government agency ever.
Fair enough, but let’s remember it got that big mainly because a bunch of already existing agencies were gathered under one big umbrella. That might be a particularly stupid way to create a large agency, but it wasn’t created from scratch.
When have Republicans ever campaigned on concrete, real budget cuts? The correct answer is “never.” The “debt crisis” is an abstraction that they love and the voters continue to fall for because too many Democrats (…yes I’m looking at you Carper you douche bag…) go around parroting the same vacuous rhetoric.
Another minor correction. Bush did not create DHS. Congress did. I’m not going to go research it, but I seem to recall that WH actually lobbied against its creation.
a bunch of already existing agencies were gathered under one big umbrella. with a lot more budget than they’d ever had before and a lot of brand new agencies and sub-agencies added in as well.
but point taken.
Why shouldn’t DHS be the biggest government agency?
Forget what I just said above. I confused DHS w/ another agency.
‘Why shouldn’t DHS be the biggest government agency?’
The agency created from irrational fear. Af far as the GOP is concerned, it’s the perfect agency, worthy of growth… after all, there are a few bad guys out there.
Isnt the DOD larger? Or does that not fit the criteria of “gov’t agency?”
Last time I saw the budget analysis (admittedly three years ago), the total outlays in all of the areas covered under DHS (and that included some function shared by/usurped from DOD) was about 15% higher than DOD. The problem of knowing exactly is that sometime agencies and parts of agencies are reported as part of DHS, sometimes not.
I do know that when they teach this at the Naval Postgraduate School out in CA which has the leading graduate program in the field, they hew to the line that DHS is bigger than DOD.