1st FEMA; then maybe the DOE or how about the ATF?

A day of two ago I wrote about they "bipartisian" senate panel to scrap FEMA. I then wondered if the Department of Education might be next. Well maybe the reticle is on to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (and explosives) - the ATF. (pun intended)

The image on the left is a T-shirt from Those Shirts, a right wing T-shirt maker. While the website has a "disclaimer" of humor, it is a window on how conservatives and neo-cons, the Republicans think.

So would scrapping the ATF be far fetched? Once we thought ending FEMA to be a far fetched idea too.

So make a list, what programs, agencies, etc. do the Repblicans hate? What might be on their hit list? They've had 5 years to undercut, make impotent, "bureaucritize," these agencies and programs. Five years in the oven, maybe it's ready to show the end result. Maybe it's time to yet again feast on the bread of social neglect the Republicans are so good at cooking up.

There is another T-shirt about journalists. Considering how hostile many of them complain the enivorment is now, do you think they are laughing?

FEMA, the first to GO

The neo-cons, the face and blood of the new Republican party, had a plan. Take good, functioning programs and departments, in some case "jewels in USA's crown" and mire them in red tape, lack of funding, incompotent cronyism, political hackery, bureaucracy. Then have it falter under either the added weight of this new load, or so unworkable as to frustrate and cause abandoment of it, add in a trillon dollar debt so that there is additional pressure and voila! departments/programs will be abolished.

The first for this recommendation is FEMA "Senate Panel Recommends Abolishing FEMA"

Describing FEMA as a "shambles and beyond repair," Collins said the overall report "will help ensure that we do not have a repeat of the failures following Hurricane Katrina."

Well it wasn't before the Republicans took over... it worked well and was a jewel we proudly pointed to.

It [panel] proposes creating a new agency, called the National Preparedness and Response Authority, that would plan and carry out relief missions for domestic disasters. Unlike now, the authority would have a direct line of communication with the president during major crises, and any dramatic cuts to its budget or staffing levels would have to be approved by Congress.

It would also oversee efforts to protect critical infrastructure such as buildings, roads and power systems, as well as Homeland Security's medical officer. But the inquiry calls for keeping the agency within Homeland Security, warning that making it an independent office would cut it off from resources the larger department could provide.

But didn't FEMA have that during Clinton? Didn't FEMA WORK under Clinton? Wouldn't FEMA and the US taxpayer be better served if it were once again a separate stand alone agency, with compotent people at the helm.

What will be next on the chopping block? The Republican long despised Department of Education?

I seriously had one Republican lawyer tell me that his group does not believe the government should nor has an obligation to educate it's citizenry.