Posted by Sir Four at 11:23am Jan 4 '12The reaction to this seems to be either, a) yeah man, government sux, let's get rid of 'em, or b) [eye roll] there goes Ron Paul again talking about scaling back the government.
No one actually seems to treat this idea seriously. Paul wants to zero out the budgets of these federal departments: Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior and Housing and Urban Development.
The Dept. of Education oversees things like special ed, student financial aid, civil rights in the classroom, and national academic standards. I get that the last one is controversial for those who want more local control (read: more creationism, less sex ed), but do we really want to zero out the department completely?
The Dept. of Energy oversees the nation's nuclear stockpile, nuclear power plants, and the national power grid. They also fund our preeminent science laboratories, including Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Fermilab, where so many important advances in science have been made. Paul must think we can retain our competitive edge in science without these publicly-funded labs, but I frankly don't.
The Dept. of Commerce is home to NOAA and the National Weather Service, the Patent and Trademark Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
The Dept. of the Interior manages the national parks, the Fish and Wildlife service, and environmental conservation efforts. In Ron Paul's world, places like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon would be owned and operated by private companies, and would be expected to turn a profit or else potentially be sold off for other types of development, rather than conservation.
The Dept of Housing and Urban Development...yeah, I get this one. A Ron Paul type would certainly oppose a federal department with a mission of combating homelessness and ghettoization of neighborhoods, and addressing the needs of poorer Americans. Zeroing it out still quite a controversial proposition, though.
Are people not taking these proposals seriously because they still don't take Paul as a serious candidate?
No one actually seems to treat this idea seriously. Paul wants to zero out the budgets of these federal departments: Education, Energy, Commerce, Interior and Housing and Urban Development.
The Dept. of Education oversees things like special ed, student financial aid, civil rights in the classroom, and national academic standards. I get that the last one is controversial for those who want more local control (read: more creationism, less sex ed), but do we really want to zero out the department completely?
The Dept. of Energy oversees the nation's nuclear stockpile, nuclear power plants, and the national power grid. They also fund our preeminent science laboratories, including Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Fermilab, where so many important advances in science have been made. Paul must think we can retain our competitive edge in science without these publicly-funded labs, but I frankly don't.
The Dept. of Commerce is home to NOAA and the National Weather Service, the Patent and Trademark Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
The Dept. of the Interior manages the national parks, the Fish and Wildlife service, and environmental conservation efforts. In Ron Paul's world, places like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon would be owned and operated by private companies, and would be expected to turn a profit or else potentially be sold off for other types of development, rather than conservation.
The Dept of Housing and Urban Development...yeah, I get this one. A Ron Paul type would certainly oppose a federal department with a mission of combating homelessness and ghettoization of neighborhoods, and addressing the needs of poorer Americans. Zeroing it out still quite a controversial proposition, though.
Are people not taking these proposals seriously because they still don't take Paul as a serious candidate?
Ron Paul says he wants to end five departments - Sir Four