Restructuring an unsustainable federal spending machine
by Larry Fisher, October 9, 2012 (Re-published from OpEd News with permission.) The $15 trillion spike in the national debt occurred because the 1978 CSRA law allowed politicians, via their political appointees, to undermine an entire bureaucracy solely to promote their deregulation & outsourcing agendas. This 30+ yr law-breaking spree precipitated the collapse of the S&L co.s,…
by Larry Fisher, October 9, 2012
(Re-published from OpEd News with permission.)
 The $15 trillion spike in the national debt occurred because the 1978 CSRA law allowed politicians, via their political appointees, to undermine an entire bureaucracy solely to promote their deregulation & outsourcing agendas. This 30+ yr law-breaking spree precipitated the collapse of the S&L co.s, 2008 economic crisis, and, now, a dysfunctional bureaucracy that we either fix or these trillion dollar deficits will continue.The U.S. government’s precipitous fall from solvent democracy to abusive, secretive, and bankrupt oligarchy began with the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and a legislative mandate to promote government efficiency and accountability. This legislation violated one of our forefather’s checks and balances by replacing its apolitical civil service professionals with corporate managers and more politically-astute civil service bureaucrats. These private and public sector managers would now fill newly created senior executive service (SES) political appointee positions within the executive and judicial branches. This meant that, post 1978, each incoming administration’s President, Vice President, and their executive schedule (EX) political appointees could now use (or be used by) those inherited SES executive and judicial branch political appointee managers. The 1978 CSRA law also encouraged the movement of EX / SES political appointees between their parent corporations and temporary government positions thereby allowing these revolving door bureaucrats (RDBs) to dominate every facet of the government’s operation. Thirty-four years later, those corporate-driven, deregulation, outsourcing, and war-related RDBs have structured (undermined) an entire bureaucracy to ensure the compliant and unquestioning civil service bureaucrats needed to rubberstamp the corporate takeover of the U.S. government.
President Obama is a prime example of just how successful this corporate takeover was, largely because of his decision not to follow thru on the “open, transparent, and accountable” government reforms that got him elected. Instead, he and his EX political appointees used, without question, the very same RDBs that precipitated the 1980’s collapse of the savings and loan companies, 2008 economic crisis, and 16 trillion dollars in national debt. Today, all three government branches still work as one, transferring trillions of dollars in wealth from the taxpayer to corrupt politicians, RDBs, and corporations. The executive branches’ RDBs use taxpayer dollars to provide meaningless public sector services (while covering-up all levels of collusion/corruption) and then pay (again) for equally deficient corporate goods and services. The judicial branches’ RDBs give free “get out of jail passes” to public and private-sector criminals. The legislative branch (Congress) gets paid twice, once by the taxpayer, and yet again by lobbyists, while undermining the executive and judicial branches, and enriching themselves. With no checks and balances between all three government branches, the taxpayers are subsidizing a federal spending machine that will ultimately collapse, no matter the severity of cuts to the bureaucracy or American people’s services. Bankrupt corporations are required to restructure. The government must now restructure, starting with the elimination of all RDBs, and term limits for Congress. Similar PostsWhistleblower Russ Tice comments on Obama’s NSA speechFollowing President Obama’s speech on Friday, a Reuters reporter interviewed Russell Tice for comments on the president’s proposed reforms of National Security Agency surveillance programs. Tice, a former NSA employee and whistleblower, criticized the lack of a mechanism to determine if the NSA is lying about its activities. Whistleblower witch hunts sink US press freedom rankingThe United States fell a whopping 13 places in this year’s World Press Freedom Index, ending up in 46th place behind former Iron Curtain states like the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania and barely beating out Haiti. Profile in CourageA Beleaguered Georgia Physician Fights for Patients and Jobs – and Wins By Tom Nugent After spending “twelve years in the wilderness” as one of America’s most determined medical whistle blowers, Dr. James Murtagh achieves a legal victory that could change the way U.S. hospitals manage their physicians . . . while also helping to…  Petition Seeks Support For Marine Corps WhistleblowerFranz Gayl, a Marine Corps science and technology adviser, helped to disclose “life-threatening” problems in the Pentagon’s efforts to field Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles,” according to U.S. Senators Joseph Biden, D-Del., and Kit Bond, R-Mo, who called him a “conscientious whistle-blower” and a “hero.” But, the bureaucracy didn’t take kindly to Gayl’s efforts to protect… Whistleblowers, Moral Injury, and Endless War; Was Chelsea Manning Motivated By Moral Injury?By Peter Van Buren “My guilt will never go away,” former Marine Matthew Hoh explained to me. “There is a significant portion of me that doesn’t believe it should be allowed to go away, that this pain is fair.” If America accepts the idea of fighting endless wars, it will have to accept something else… |