Cabinet Departments By Order of Succession

Department of State - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be.

Department of the Treasury - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be.

Department of Defense - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be.

Department of Justice - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be.

Department of the Interior - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be. "Where" in this case can probably be taken rather more literally than others. As much land for which the Fed. Gov. is responsible as possible should be released to state control.

Department of Agriculture - Perhaps rename it to Department of Agriculture and Health. Then, move the Centers for Disease Control, FDA, National Institutes of Health, and other health related endeavors here.

Department of Commerce - Eliminate. Move NOAA and the Patent and Trademark Office to appropriate remaining departments (specifically Transportation and/or Treasury and/or Interior respectively).

Department of Labor - Eliminate. Re-create some functions at other federal agencies only as it becomes known that they are needed, but they should never be significant functions.

Department of Health and Human Services - Eliminate or reduce it's responsibilities to only Health. See Department of Agriculture for important agencies that need to be retained under a cabinet level department.

Department of Housing and Urban Development - Eliminate.

Department of Transportation - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be. (An aside, I did not know the Coast Guard went from Treasury to Transportation to Homeland Security.)

Department of Energy - Remove as cabinet level position. Conduct a thorough review of exactly what the agency actually does and relocate surviving functions to the Department of the Interior.

Department of Education - Move Federal Student Aid to the Department of the Treasury. Move federal role for the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and Gallaudet University to the Department of the Interior. Eliminate the remainder of the department.

Department of Veterans Affairs - The VA should expand its relevant agencies to assume the functions of eliminated departments related to military veterans (including promoting employment and education for veterans).

Department of Homeland Security - Detailed review needed to determine where the Fed. Gov. doesn't need to be. Move the Secretary of Homeland Security into the line of succession after the Attorney General.



Just starting with Cabinet positions.

ARRRRR!

The US could survive the loss of 90% of those departments and function just fine. There is no real need for a department of the interior. The federally claimed lands should rightfully be turned over to state control.

The National Park System is a very nice thing to have, yes, but is it necessary for the functioning of our society?

Only in so much as people like to vacation there, and I'm sure that it would be well tended by the relevant state authorities who are loathe to tinker with a known money maker like that.

There is NO reason for the federal government to be involved in Education, that is something that is best left to the local authorities who are ON SITE with the kids being educated.

i thought the department of the interior kept your natives at bay?

Ok.

I thunk the Dept. of Education was made due to States in the South reaching parts of the US not allowing Intergration of races... or something to that nature.. should keep it at the smallest possible, incase the Southern states decide since they've been following the Rules long enough that they don't need them... and end up falling back into Segregating<sp races again.

What we need is a Department of Redundancy Department to eliminate redundant departments and to eliminate unnecessary departments that carry out the same tasks as other departments.

[insert idiocracy joke here]

[insert random cat reference here]

https://www.youtube.com/...ture=youtube_gdata_player

That is all...

junky, the department of education was set up in '65 to determine, in fact, how it was they were to have ten amendments for a bill of rights, but also to stop counting at nine.

therein lies the fun with the us department of education, i guess.

the only government needed is for national and domestic protection.

hm, i forget whom, i'll guess rand paul was my first introduction, but anything that isn't trusted to private industry (so, state militias, your police forces, your elections, etc), is private business, and then anything that isn;t trusted to an individual state, (ie, your national defense, maybe your treasurer, your diplomacy with other states, etc) is run by the federal government- which i think leaves the federal government to national defense and talking to other nations.

you will also need to note that i a) don't have a vote, and b) failed the last civics class i took outside of summer school :P

The issue with your system isn't in the actual structure of government agencies -- it's the election & lobbying process.

On second though... I think that discussion is a little too advanced for this group. See you later, Department of Housing and Urban Development -- screw giving a reason!

CANADA HAS YET TO HOUSE OR URBAN DEVELOP, WE HAVE NO FEDERAL DEPARTMENT TO COORDINATE IT :(

Canada also has a military comprised of a couple drunk sailors and some dudes on horses.

tell that to the germans in w's one and two, when we kicked the fluff out of those fascist fluffs in a war that wasn't our own and that never threatened us. two of them. if you had alcohol during either of them, you were drunk also.

and we never sent our horses against tanks.

Canada had the 3rd largest navy and 4-5th largest air force in the world at the end of WWII if I'm not mistaken.

And the Germans weren't fascist the first time nor did we choose to help.

well, if we're nitpicking my exact wording, i don't think either german army was built from vaginas, either..

also, choose wasn't a word i used, at all. also, help wasn't a word i used.

I suppose I should have specified that this was on the basis of things that the US Federal Government has any business actually doing at the beginning of this. I guess I thought that several of the other reasons would make it clear that this was about the things that the federal government should and should not be doing.

Housing and Urban Development is the exclusive purview of the states.

This is important because the US is a federal republic. Some aspects of government are assigned to the federal government exclusively, some to both the federal government and state governments, and some to the state governments exclusively.

Housing and Urban Development goes a little bit further down the lines than just state government authority and lies mostly with local governments. Heck a portion of the responsibility for planning housing and other urban development best lies directly with the people getting together with city leaders to decide how they want their cities to grow. This is why I simply said to eliminate the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Someone needs to get a blog...

bonus.

Alright, I'm actually not opposed to some of these except for what I suspect would be a disastrous race to the bottom by certain states. If you give all of the federal lands to the states, then several of those states would immediately auction off every acre to oil and mining companies, that short term cash bonanza would then be squandered by the states (because they ALWAYS squander it) and future generations would be poorer by far having never even known what they lost.

As for education, I'm not sure that Louisiana and Mississippi have proven that they are capable of properly educating their own children. I can already see the precipitous decline in science standards as the bible thumpers moved in and took over the schools. When 1/3 of our children are taught that evolution is a lie = science win for China.

Environmental laws are yet another race to the bottom. As states like Texas and Oklahoma throw off the shackles of Federal environmental oversight to lure in business, everybody in a down river or down wind state gets to suffer the consequences.

I think you guys miss the point that the states already have significant control over most of these areas of government. When I hunt on Fed lands, I obey state hunting laws. When I apply for a mining permit of Fed lands or am cleaning up a historical industrial site on Fed lands, I am negotiating almost exclusively with state agencies. My kids textbooks and standardized testing and teacher accreditation are all 100% Texas governed.

The tea party has invented this 'big government' lie to try to further the agenda of a few very well placed groups and individuals, and they have succeeded in convincing otherwise intelligent people into buying into it. The federal government in the US is one of the weakest in the developed world and it shows in our rampant poverty, failed justice system, and atrocious health care system.

In its origin, the US was highly successful utilizing geographic representation. Gerrymandering began the erosion of the benefits of such a system, something that continued with the advent of planes, trains, and automobiles. In today's technologically connected world, geography matters less than ever. A significant percentage of the population is not represented because there is no proportional ideological representation. Americans are doomed to vote for one of two de facto coalition governments that they call political parties, but have very little control over the composition of those parties.

Also, money is more valuable than votes, but its only fraud when one of them is created from thin air :-D

Votes are worth money, those dudes sitting outside grocery stores, get money for every signature.

The Government is all money!!! No one votes on what they campaign for.

+1 to pang, archaic and Viceroy.

Angel1: what you should have prefaced it with is that it is your opinion and not based in law at all.

Honestly, if you care this much about changing the constitution, go put your time into starting a constitutional congress. That is perfectly legal.

Note: see other thread (minimum wage thread) for my prior answers on the actual powers delegated to congress and the federal government and how "power" not delegated to them is created and enforced (purse).

Why not just abolish the concept of states, and make it Federal --- Municipal...

Or we could just abolish the Federal and have 50 new countries? :)

Then we could actually impose tariffs and sanctions on each other and eventually go to war!

THIS

One of the best posts in this thread. Everything else fails.

I live in Texas, I'd actually be down for this.

I live in Georgia. We have the CDC Vaults.

Biowar FTW!

The Federal Government as it is now...or 50 nations. You know, I'd rather have the 50 nations over the federal government as it is coming to exist.

This country was suppose to have a strong, but limited federal government. In the things that they had jurisdiction over, the federal government was meant to be strong. In all other things, the people were meant to have the choice of first 13 and now 50 different sets of laws to live under. I get to live under the set of laws I prefer and you get to live under the set of laws you prefer.

Its settled then.

Dept of Housing and Urban development needs refocused on making sure our veterans never go homeless.