January 27, 2003
THE WAR AT HOME:
Davis to push bill allowing president to reorganize agencies (Tanya N. Ballard, January 22, 2003, GovExec.com)House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., said Wednesday that he plans to push legislation that would give the president broad authority to reorganize federal agencies. His goal is to get the measure through Congress by August."It's clear that you can?t take the existing structure into the 21st century," Davis said during a luncheon sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group focused on improving the government?s recruitment and retention record. "We need to give the administration reorganization authority--where they can move ahead without specific congressional authorization in every case." [...]
Revamping the outdated civil service system will be another priority for the committee, Davis said.
"The key for us as we look at the civil service and the government bureaucracies . . .is to try to make it more streamlined, more efficient and more effective, and the way to do that is to revamp it significantly," Davis said. "Getting hired and getting firedare two of the most difficult things in the federal sector today."
In the long run, these kinds of reforms and the privatization of Social Security and Medicare (and voucherization, which is not necessarily privatization, of education), though they're less sexy and get less attention, are far more important to America than the war on Islamicism. It's here that the conservative revolution is proceeding, beneath the radar. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 27, 2003 9:18 AM
Perhaps the most extreme political opinion I hold is my disdain for the administrative state and my conviction that it is largely unconsitutional. Anything that is justified by the Supreme Court with "It must be constitutional, because otherwise modern government would be impossible" is something I'm just bound to impose. And let's not forget Heinlein's quip that, after a certain level of devlopment, the term "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil master." So more power to Rep. Davis and may he bolix it up but good.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 27, 2003 8:54 AMSomething I'm just bound to oppose, of course.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 27, 2003 8:59 AMIf we lose the war with Islam, we've lost
civilization. If we lose what you would
regard as the war with central government,
we have what we've got right now, which
is pretty good.
Harry:
But the war with Islam is not losable. ZEven if we did absolutely nothing, not even increasing security at home, the worst that would happen is an occassional bombing. As globalization proceeeds and the rest of the world moves towards greater prosperity and liberalized government the internal pressure on Islamic states is becoming greater than current structures can bear. Like the needless wars against nazism and communism, it's no real threat to us. I don't mind fighting it, but it's silly to fear it.