Cutting Federal Agencies

At its heart, growth in the number and size of federal agencies is the primary cause of a growing national debt, inflation, constraints on free enterprise, and inefficiencies in our economy. During the majority of the history of this great country the federal government was tiny, with very few federal agencies and those agencies were generally small. However, during the 20th century federal agencies, and federal control of businesses and state and local governments exploded. This occurred even when the original intention was to create a temporary fix (such as the 1920 Jones Act constraining U.S. shipping, see Regulation — SteveParsonsLibertarian.com). Virtually every federal agency deserves to be cut, or eliminated, but below I list the more prominent problem agencies.

For each of these there should be a transition plan - something I don’t trust the current administration to adequately perform.

FEMA This great country survived for 190 years without the federal government telling us to help our neighbors in an emergency. Spending has exploded increasing by as much as 4,000%. This program is political, poorly managed, and subsidizes wealthy people living in high risk areas. See Folly of Federal Flood Insurance | Cato at Liberty Blog and Governments Subsidize Disaster—and the Wealthy | Cato at Liberty Blog and Amid Climate Change, FEMA And Government Aid Widen Wealth Inequality : NPR. This causes future emergencies to be more costly and more deadly.

FBI The FBI, like most federal agencies is vulnerable to political pressures. Moreover, the FBI is prone to ignore the 4th amendment to the U.S. constitution (involving unreasonable search and seizure). Spying on American citizens is simply not acceptable.

U.S. Department of Education. Seven words that do NOT exist in the US constitution are: education, child, pupil, student, school, college, or university. In contrast there are literally hundreds of hits for these 7 words in the Arkansas constitution (like most state’s constitutions). There is no US constitutional authority for a federal department of education. The 10th amendment requires if the constitution itself, does not explicitly grant the federal government a power - that power resides with the states or the people. The Federal government tends to force states into a national cookie-cutter format. “No Child Left Behind” also means no child gets ahead. Even when the original intent was to fund education, the USDoE ends up forcing states and localities to fit the federal mold. This stifles innovation and prevents programs that are suited to local needs.

Even though the Trump administration claims it wishes to eliminate the US DOE, there are still attempts to control the treatment of DEI and transgenders in sports. These are state topics - NOT for federal control.

IRS There is a huge opportunity for a fundamental change in the U.S. tax code. Currently, the tax code and accompanying treasury explanatory documents is over 70,000 pages and there are over 200 tax loopholes. The tax code is a morass of conflicting and overlapping inefficient policies. The tax code distorts economically sound decisions, punishes investment and savings, and is biased against investments in long-lived capital assets. These problems can be solved with a flat tax. This will allow the U.S. to eliminate the IRS. See, e.g., Tax Expenditures and Tax Reform | Cato Institute and Federal Tax Reform | Cato Institute and Slashing Tax Rates and Cutting Loopholes | Cato Institute‍ ‍

Federal Reserve. While it would be simple and efficient to simply eliminate the federal reserve, there are ways to drastically limit the federal reserve and achieve a similar result. See, Fed Reform — SteveParsonsLibertarian.com.