Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the Department of Energy during the Carter Administration?
Anybody? Anything? No? (Some of you may remember back that far. Me, I was 8 years old in '77, so I can't say I remember it.)
Didn't think so.
Bottom line ... we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember.
Ready?
It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate. The Department of Energy was instituted 8-04-77 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. (Actually that was the Federal Energy Office that was supposed to do that by 1980, but when Carter became President, he decided to put everything energy related under one Cabinet agency. This includes nuclear, oil, coal, etc.)
Hey, pretty efficient, huh?
And now it's 2008, 31 years later, and the budget for this necessary department is at $24.2 billion per year, they have 16,000 federal employees, and approximately 100,000 contract employees and look at the job they have done!
Ah yes, good ole bureaucracy. And now we are going to turn the banking system over to them?
God Help us.
The #Dogs’ July 2024 Vet Trip
1 year ago
I remember the formation of this department - it was a visible response to the long lines of people waiting to buy rationed gasoline.
ReplyDeleteA couple things are given. The government tends only to function in a "knee-jerk" reaction mode, there is little to no long-range planning (and why would there be - given the nominal 4-year lifespan of a politician? To them long-range is about 3 years.)
Once created, no government organization is ever disbanded. Many of FDR's "New Deals", set up in the 1930s are now long obsolete, but they live on and on and on... for instance, the Rural Electrification Administration is now in the USDA (of all places).
Our Government is the country's largest employer and adds nothing to any "real economy". By real, I mean the productive creation of goods for use by people - they are at best, "overhead" and a burden on the taxpaying, working person.
Yes, Heaven help us (if even He or She is able).
See?? This is why I should be President!!! Talk about mavericks, lol!!
ReplyDeleteHey hun! You didn't register for my giveaway yet!!! Come on back!
*shakes head at the bureaucratic BS and moves along*
ReplyDeleteActually I remember very well the establishment of the Department of Energy. I was working for the state Department of Natural Resources at that point in time and when Jimmy Carter established the Department of Energy, we had to hire three people to administer it at the state level. So when you look at the cost, you are only seeing a small portion of it. Think of 50 states all hiring people... I have no clue how big that section is now or if it even still exists.
ReplyDelete