The Bush Administration continued the regulatory review program of the Reagan Presidency. Nonetheless, the pace of new health, safety, and environmental regulations that had begun to increase at the end of the Reagan Administration continued during the first two years of the Bush Administration. In 1990, President George HW Bush responded to expressions of concern about increasing regulatory burdens by returning to the approach used by the Reagan Task Force on Regulatory Relief. Vice President Quayle was placed in charge of a task force -- now called the Competitiveness Council -- whose mission was to provide regulatory relief.
On September 30, 1993, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12866, "Regulatory Planning and Review." The Order reaffirmed the legitimacy of centralized review but reestablished the primacy (dominance) of the agencies in regulatory decision making. It retained the requirement for analysis of benefits and costs, quantified to the maximum extent possible, and the general principle that the benefits of intended regulations should justify the costs. In addition, while continuing the basic framework of regulatory review established in 1981, it made several changes in response to criticisms that had been voiced against the Reagan/Bush programs.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) manages the bulk of bilateral economic assistance; the Treasury Department handles most multilateral aid; and the Department of Defense (DOD) and the State Department administer military and other security-related programs. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a new foreign aid agency created in 2004. The Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) under the Department of Defense has more than 26,000 civilian and military personnel throughout the world; it provides supplies to the military services and supports their acquisition of weapon repair part and other material and therefore is an integral part of the nation's military defense. It also provides crucial relief to victims of natural disasters and humanitarian aid to those around the world in need.
The House of Representatives is limited to a membership of 435 (currently each represent 600,000+ people) due to the Reapportionment Act enacted June 18, 1929. The Senate is limited to 2 senators per state. I looked at this because I thought we could reduce the Legislature; I’ve decided to leave it alone as its size should not grow regardless of any population increase.
What I got out of everything I read is that our government has grown because our world has changed a lot in the last 50 years. We as a people have concerns with the civil rights and safety of the people which in many cases includes the environment (not only air pollution but business practices that hinder ground water and soil contamination). Johnson’s war on poverty has not been resolved as we still have 15% of our people in poverty and the argument over business regulations has been going on for all 50 years; on one hand we yell that the government only inspects about 1-2% of the products produced while on the other we want our safety concerns to be addressed. This issue continues to cause me confusion – we know the government cannot 100% protect us from business practices that cause us harm and yet we want to reduce our production standards that cost businesses money while those same businesses are able to donate billions in campaign funds. We as a people must decide if it’s the responsibility of business, the government or ourselves to keep us safe.
The easiest increase in our government to spot was with increased aviation and the war on terror which has increased our nation’s overall size and budget dramatically. During the January 7, 2012 debate Rick Perry said reducing our military is jeopardizing our freedom and Ron Paul said the Patriot Act was wrong and he wants to stop undeclared wars. I hope many others thought that after the September 11, 2011 attacks we were justified in being active in finding those that attacked; whether the intelligence information given to Bush was right or wrong. Should we have done nothing, cowered and lost the respect of a world that looks to us for strength? I personally do not think that turning a blind eye was an action that we could afford as such would clearly allow other attacks on our nation and therefore jeopardize the freedoms that we have that many in the world do not. I don’t want Big Brother controlling all of my actions as in other countries like China, North Korea, or Iran, the countries we should watch the most. So, we as a people must decide if we are willing to give $10 a year or $1 a month to protect us from terrorism. We as a people must also decide if we want to continue providing humanitarian aid to those inside and outside our country; this is more of a spiritual decision that could include a trade-off between the millions spent on criminals versus helping those that have committed no crime.
I believe that most of the policies of our nation have all been implemented with good intentions but over the years we have gone astray and we need to revisit the actual performance of many of the programs to see that the comply with their initial intentions. As such, I do not believe that we should blindly cut the cost of our government nor do I think we should cut the government to suit business alone. We need to stop believing that China and others took American jobs when it fact they were given by our companies and state governments.
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