One DoE affected by the Shutdown™, the Department of Education, not to be confused with the Dept. of Energy, has a $70 Billion dollar budget it spends primarily on nothing that has anything to do with teaching children. (It is, as are most federal agencies, an Oasis for lobbyists, rent-seekers, and the handing out of indulgences.) So it is not surprising that Obama’s Shutdown of the government would reveal just how much waste is being reduced by keeping these pencil pushers out of the office.
Ninety-five percent of the Department of Education’s staff is deemed “non-essential.” They have been furloughed. Given a stay-cation. As in stay home tax-dollar-wasting pencil-pushers.
And lucky for us….they are not alone.
The EPA also deems 95% of its staff non-essential. At the HUD, it is 96%.
On the whole 43% of the entire US government has been told to stay home which means 57% of them are still working. And Nancy Pelosi says there is no place to cut? Even at 57%, which a back of the napkin calculation leaves us with a Federal presence for the low-low bargain price of about 2.5 Trillion a year, is too big.
But this is a crisis, according to those who need it to be, so let us not leave it for waste. The states have an excellent opportunity to take back their responsibilities from Uncle Sam and give them back to local agencies, municipalities, and the people who pay for all of it; who may then see what it is that really needs doing, and reapportion those funds accordingly, even if that means giving them back to the people who earned them. Don’t send your money to DC so you can fight to get it back; keep it and spend it in your state, where it was earned, and where the people who earned it, can keep an eye on it.
Idea for a T-Shirt: “Obama Shut down the Federal Government And All I got was my Freedom back.” (Well, some of it).
This could be the first thing Obama ever did that was actually useful.
