When the chuckleheads in DC were bailing out everything with a supposed leak and everyone with a hand out for taxpayer ‘sweat of the brow’, the mantra of the day was "Too big to fail". The main thrust was that was a number of the firms that were judged too big to fail in that the "system" would absolutely deconstruct if these entities were not supported. Now, remember this:
"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified."
– President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09
Riiiiggghhhtttt. Well, during Obama’s "HearseBus trip" for one of his campaign listening stops this past week, a farmer asked him about some of the new regulations coming their way and he was none too happy that the DC Regulation Corps just doesn’t get farming – WHY are you making it so much harder for us?
The one question that never seemed to come up at the bailout time was "well, is Govt too Big to Fail"? Yeah, I know – most conservatives understand innately that it is spot now (and certainly I have posted Dumb Things that Govt does regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office or controlling Congress) even as it is mantra #1 for Progressives (Govt can do no wrong and, well, if it does, it’s only a tiny problem). However, this one is all on Obama, especially with his cavalier attitude of "Hey, Govt’s got ya covered – just ask the right people; they’ll set ya straight. Don’t listen to those other people – they just causing trouble".
Well, a Politico reporter decided to follow Obama’s advice:
“My suspicion is, a lot of times, they’re going to be able to answer your questions and it will turn out that some of your fears are unfounded.”
Heh! SURE – just call! Look, I have worked for behemoth companies – Honeywell Information Systems, Wang Labs, Digital Equipment – it can be hard to find the right person. Uncle Sam dwarfs them. But you would think that right after Obama puts them on the spot, they’d be spot on for question.
Not so much, USDA:
Wednesday, 2:40 p.m. ET: After calling the USDA’s main line, I am told to call the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Here, I am patched through to a man who is identified as being in charge of "support services." I leave a message.
3:53 p.m.: The man calls me back and recommends in a voicemail message that I call the Illinois Farm Bureau — a non-governmental organization.
4:02 p.m.: A woman at the Illinois Farm Bureau connects me to someone in the organization’s government affairs department. That person tells me they "don’t quite know who to refer you to."
4:06 p.m.: I call the Illinois Department of Agriculture again, letting the person I spoke with earlier know that calling the Illinois Farm Bureau had not been fruitful. He says "those are the kinds of groups that are kind of on top of this or kind of follow things like this. We deal with pesticide here in our bureau."
"You only deal with pesticides?" I ask.
"We deal with other things … but we mainly deal with pesticides here," he says, and gives me the phone number for the office of the department’s director, where he says there are "policy people" as well as the director’s staff.
4:10 p.m.: Someone at the director’s office transfers me to the agriculture products inspection department, where a woman says their branch deals with things like animal feed, seed and fertilizer.
"I’m going to transfer you to one of the guys at environmental programs."
4:15 p.m.: I reach the answering machine at the environmental programs department, and leave a message.
4:57 p.m.: A man from the environmental programs department gets back to me: "I hate to be the regular state worker that’s always accused of passing the buck, but noise and dust regulation would be under our environmental protection agency, rather than the Agriculture Department," he says, adding that he has forwarded my name and number to the agriculture adviser at IEPA.
On Thursday morning, POLITICO started the hunt for an answer again, this time calling the USDA’s local office in Henry County, Ill., where the town hall took place.
9:42 a.m.: Asked if someone at the office might be able to provide me with the information I requested, the woman on the phone responds, “Not right now. We may have to actually look that up — did you Google this or anything?”
When I say that I’m a reporter and would like to discuss my experience with someone who handles media relations there, I am referred to the USDA’s state office in Champaign. I leave a message there.
10:40 a.m.: A spokeswoman for the Illinois Natural Resources Conservation Service calls me, to whom I explain my multiple attempts on Wednesday and Thursday to retrieve the information I was looking for.
“What I can tell you is our particular agency does not deal with regulations,” she tells me. “We deal with volunteers who voluntarily want to do things. I think the reason you got that response from the Cambridge office is because in regard to noise and dust regulation, we don’t have anything to do with that.”
She adds that the EPA would be more capable of answering questions regarding regulations.
The reporter finally called the media dude at USDAF. Response, via email:
“Secretary Vilsack continues to work closely with members of the Cabinet to help them engage with the agricultural community to ensure that we are separating fact from fiction on regulations because the administration is committed to providing greater certainty for farmers and ranchers. Because the question that was posed did not fall within USDA jurisdiction, it does not provide a fair representation of USDA’s robust efforts to get the right information to our producers throughout the country.”
I would say that if you can’t even FIND someone who can listen, or you can’t even someone who KNOWS where to send you to get an answer, that’s a problem. When you get the above answer, that’s an indication that Govt
IS TOO BIG TO CARE, and then, TOO BIG TO WORK.
Remember:
The Bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen .
