Today's Executive Order

[Rotobeast]

I'm not too good at deciphering legal works, but this looks vague and worries me a bit.

Can the more legally adept minds here have a look and afford their opinion ?

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/03/13/presidential-executive-order-comprehensive-plan-reorganizing-executive

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[BmorePat87]

It just tells the OMB to have all executive agencies come up with a plan for how they can reduce their size and push off more stuff to the states and then send that plan to the President and Congress in a year.

Congress would have to vote to shut down any agency.

Expect them to say the EPA and Dept of Education are a waste of money.

[Belsnickel]

It is a waste of resources to find wastes of resources.

In all seriousness I haven't read it yet, and since my office was closed today I don't have a real keyboard to type a response on, so maybe tomorrow.

[*bfine32*]

I hope it means I can soon hire some help.

[Rotobeast]

(03-14-2017, 09:21 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: It just tells the OMB to have all executive agencies come up with a plan for how they can reduce their size and push off more stuff to the states and then send that plan to the President and Congress in a year.

Congress would have to vote to shut down any agency.

Expect them to say the EPA and Dept of Education are a waste of money.

I was thinking that was the gist of it, but I can't help but think there's another angle involved.
I would love to see some downsizing though.
Although, I can say I don't think the EPA should be eliminated entirely at the Federal level.
I don't think the states would play too nice with one another.
There'd be a lot of "not my problem you're downstream".

[Rotobeast]

I just remembered something....
This is one of the things I asked for, in the comments section of the GOP poll Zona posted.
It was before I'd done more reading and had a discussion with my Green Party friend.
I had been of the opinion that the state's could handle the EPA entirely.
You guys can blame me.


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[Benton]

(03-14-2017, 10:17 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I hope it means I can soon hire some help.

If you employ drones or other inanimate objects, then good news!
 

[Bengalzona]

(03-14-2017, 10:17 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I hope it means I can soon hire some help.

Trump says:

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

I see it as a back door to deregulation.

Trump and staff want to make the government more "efficient" by getting rid of "redundant" agencies or positions.

Sounds good.

But, who decides what agencies and positions need to be eliminated? Trump and staff.

For an example: The EPA is redundant. Industry can police themselves in a free market economy because the market will punish the offenders and they will go out of business.

The FAA; it is in the airlines best interest they don't crash their planes. The airlines with the most crashes will fail in a free market economy.

[Rotobeast]

Trump will start with the IRS, for auditing him.


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[Benton]

(03-15-2017, 09:21 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: I see it as a back door to deregulation.

Pretty much.

It's worked with immigration. Need a cheap labor force that doesn't (can't) get benefits from the employer, don't have to pay taxes on, and won't likely report on the job injuries? Log jam immigration processing by reducing staff and increasing paperwork.

Expect the FDA, EPA, etc to reduce staff and increase paperwork, while allowing "temporary" approvals to be granted. Look for most agencies — including defense — to cut back on people, but increase spending on things. Buildings (especially buildings), supplies, etc. Construction will swing up a tick, imported goods from paper clips to office chairs will increase. But not many jobs, federal or spinoff. Of course, the spending increases will cite increased jobs numbers, but most of those will be from imported goods.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

I'll be damned. Today on Yahoo there is a story that reports Trump wants to privatize air traffic control.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(03-15-2017, 10:18 AM)Rotobeast Wrote: Trump will start with the IRS, for auditing him.


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Would be a whole lot better to institute a single flat federal income tax for everyone and then turn the IRS into about 1/50th of it's current size if not less.

The IRS in 2013 had an operating budget of $12.8b (up almost $1b from 2012, so it's probably much more now). A single flat rate with no cuts or returns or anything would also eliminate the over $21b in yearly tax return fraud.

Meanwhile it would mean people could do their own taxes again because there's no longer 5,000 page books you need to read in order to do all the loops and cuts and such.

- - -
TAX FORM

SSN:
Name:
Address:
Employer:
Employer Address:
20**'s Income:
**% of Income:

Signature:
- - -

Done. I just made the world a better place and saved like $30b.

[Belsnickel]

(03-16-2017, 08:08 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Would be a whole lot better to institute a single flat federal income tax for everyone and then turn the IRS into about 1/50th of it's current size if not less.

The IRS in 2013 had an operating budget of $12.8b (up almost $1b from 2012, so it's probably much more now). A single flat rate with no cuts or returns or anything would also eliminate the over $21b in yearly tax return fraud.

Meanwhile it would mean people could do their own taxes again because there's no longer 5,000 page books you need to read in order to do all the loops and cuts and such.

- - -
TAX FORM

SSN:
Name:
Address:
Employer:
Employer Address:
20**'s Income:
**% of Income:

Signature:
- - -

Done. I just made the world a better place and saved like $30b.

I'm for this with one change. Every year there should be an amount set that, per person, acts as a deduction. You multiply that by the people in your household, and that amount of income is deducted before calculating the tax. It would allow some relief for lower income families.

[Millhouse]

It looks like something a new CEO of a company would write to as a start to maximizing profit while minimizing expenditures.

Lets be honest, the federal government has grown into a gigantic bureaucratic beast, and there is a lot of wasteful spending within some if not all the departments with not enough benefit to justify it. The DOE for example could use some streamlining, as the link below shows one aspect of how it has failed the taxapayers money spent. Of course what gets streamlined, merged, abolished will be up for debate for sure. But there should be common ground on trying to eliminate spending with little to no benefits, and of course there wont be because its Washington & politics as usual/

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/05/how-the-department-of-energy-became-a-major-taxpayer-liability.html

[Belsnickel]

So, in reality, this is nothing extraordinary, or even new. Reagan, Clinton, they did something similar. I will be the first to admit that we need to take a hard look at our public agencies and enterprises and start looking at inefficiencies. I will also be the first to tell you that there can be a compelling argument made for 99% of what goes on.

Public policy and administration is a complicated field for a reason. How do we best provide public goods and services in an effective, efficient, and equitable way? Those are the three Es that we look at in evaluating policies. Unfortunately, career policy wonks are the ones being derided in all of this, so I don't know what will become of it all.

[Rotobeast]

(03-16-2017, 08:08 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Would be a whole lot better to institute a single flat federal income tax for everyone and then turn the IRS into about 1/50th of it's current size if not less.

The IRS in 2013 had an operating budget of $12.8b (up almost $1b from 2012, so it's probably much more now). A single flat rate with no cuts or returns or anything would also eliminate the over $21b in yearly tax return fraud.

Meanwhile it would mean people could do their own taxes again because there's no longer 5,000 page books you need to read in order to do all the loops and cuts and such.

- - -
TAX FORM

SSN:
Name:
Address:
Employer:
Employer Address:
20**'s Income:
**% of Income:

Signature:
- - -

Done. I just made the world a better place and saved like $30b.

(03-16-2017, 08:22 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm for this with one change. Every year there should be an amount set that, per person, acts as a deduction. You multiply that by the people in your household, and that amount of income is deducted before calculating the tax. It would allow some relief for lower income families.

You know that I'm onboard for this !