JG,

Just read in this morning's paper that Ron Paul, who won't be elected, nonetheless would immediately eliminate 5 federal departments as his first step in government downsizing. That almost sounds appealing to non-thinkers. The 5 are: Energy, Commerce, Interior, Education, and HUD (Housing and Urban Development). So immediately there would be no FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), BPA, TVA; no Census Bureau, NOAA (Weather Service, Ocean Service, NMFS, NIST, and others; Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Reclamation, BIA. There are other agencies, but I couldn't think of them without looking them up. Anyway, that's what Ron Paul says he would do, and also put the US back on the gold standard.

Anyway, I began thinking about what some of these agencies do, and the economic and functional chaos that would ensue with immediate, not gradual phasing out, elimination. The upshot is that even when politicians tell us things they would do, it seems like they only make good soundbites for the uninformed.

Sg