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Name:	water_watcher -	Reply
Subject:	How Government works -read all
Date:	7/6/2009 8:43:58 PM

How Government Works!!!!!

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people.
One to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost."

So they laid off the night watchman.

--------------------------

NOW Having read that: Read this slowly.

Let it sink in. Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter.

Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY .... During the Carter Administration?
Anybody? Anything? No? Didn't think so!

Bottom line. We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency ... the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember!

Ready??? It was very simple ... and, at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977. TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND, NOW, IT'S 2009 -- 32 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR.

THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND, LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!

THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WAS I THINKING?"

Ah, yes -- good ole bureaucracy.

And, NOW, we are going to turn the banking system and the auto industry over to the Government?

May God Help Us -- One and All!!!

Name:	JustAGuy -	Reply
Subject:	How Government works -read all
Date:	7/6/2009 9:13:14 PM

WW, I don't know what website you get this stuff from, or if it is from viral e-mail, but as usual you have missed the mark.

Yes, the oil/gas crisis of the 70's was part of the impetus for the creation of the DOE, but it's purpose was much more than just to rid the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil. The creation of the DOE brought all of the numerous energy-related federal agencies/commissions etc. under one roof, with one cabinet level position responsible. This included nuclear power and FERC which among other thing regulates hydrolic dams that generate electricity - such as Martin Dam and Lake Martin.

"The Department of Energy (DOE) was created in 1977 as part of the nation's attempt to deal with the oil price shocks of the 1970s. The Department was formed from a number of agencies with energy related missions. These agencies included the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA, which itself descended from the former Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)), the Federal Power Commission (now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), the Federal Energy Administration, and several programs in the Department of Interior. Because of the nuclear weapons and naval reactor programs absorbed from the AEC, the new DOE gained a sizable defense component. The DOE also became home for 22 field laboratories including the nine multipurpose national labs formed under the AEC.
The DOE covers a wide range of activities. It is responsible for the nation's nuclear weapons capability. It has the five federal power marketing administrations, a number of energy regulatory and information functions, uranium enrichment and civilian nuclear waste responsibilities, and the strategic and naval petroleum reserves. Over the last few years, DOE has developed a major environmental component to clean up its weapon's production and related facilities. Finally, DOE has a large research and development (R&D) component in both civilian and defense areas.
"

URL: History of Dept. of Energy

Name:	JustAGuy -	Reply
Subject:	hydrolic ==> hydroelectric
Date:	7/6/2009 9:18:53 PM

Name:	au67 -	Reply
Subject:	How Government works -read all
Date:	7/6/2009 9:22:14 PM

But to the point, how successful has the DOE been in reducing our dependence on foreign oil?

Name:	JustAGuy -	Reply
Subject:	How Government works -read all
Date:	7/6/2009 9:35:11 PM

Our country as a whole has done a horrible job ridding ourselves of our dependence on foreign oil, and I suppose the DOE has therefore been almost completely unsuccessful on this particular issue. I think the larger point is that WW's initial statement that DOE was created for this sole purpose is flat out incorrect. To be blunt - I absolutely HATE these viral e-mails/posts - whether they come from the right or the left. Can't we have a little honest discourse?

Name:	Yankee06 -	Reply
Subject:	How Government works -read all
Date:	7/7/2009 1:09:30 AM

JustAGuy,
-I agree with you on these email rants. But WW's basic point is correct. The DOE was formed to solve our energy dependence problem and it failed. My interpretation of the first sentence in your quote backs up WW, ...the quote is "The Department of Energy (DOE) was created in 1977 as part of the nation's attempt to deal with the oil price shocks of the 1970s"

-Yes the $26 billion reflects a lot of the other budgets for agencies that were brought into the DOE. Nevertheless, the purpose for creating the agency was not achieved. in fact we are, by percentage, more dependent on foreign oil now than we were in 1977.

-We have done a similar thing recently with intel agencies. As a result of 9/11 we have brought all the intell agencies under one chief and have given him budget control over all these agencies. The result? --another layer of bureaucrats. The intell process has slowed down because now it has to go through one more layer of approval, and this new layer is driven more by political considerations than by operational intell considerations.

My guess is that the same will be happening in the auto and finace businesses.

Bottom line; DOE failed in its mission!

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Please Explain this Statement
Date:	7/7/2009 5:11:47 AM

"We have done a similar thing recently with intel agencies. As a result of 9/11 we have brought all the intell agencies under one chief and have given him budget control over all these agencies. The result? --another layer of bureaucrats. The intell process has slowed down because now it has to go through one more layer of approval, and this new layer is driven more by political considerations than by operational intell considerations."

Please explain this statement and also your source for this information.

Name:	water_watcher -	Reply
Subject:	How Government works -read all
Date:	7/7/2009 6:11:18 AM

JUstaguy ... the DOE may do more today ... "but" the reason Carter gave to justify it when it was established was because of the oil embargo when we were only importing about 30% of our oil use. So the primary mission failed misserably just like most government run programs. Other than the military, which I think is run extremely well run, I can not think of anything else that I can say the government does well (can you?). I always look to hire ex military people and recuit JMO's every year for a management training program.

The point of the article was just that ... why would we ever want the government to run more like our healthcare system, auto industry, banking or anything else.

I firmly believe Obama's grand plan to address all this wasteful spending and huge, huge, huge deficits is to nationalize major industries and businesses. That way taxes on a portion of their profits do not matter since he will get 100%. But we all know (well most of us do) it will not work that way.

Name:	Yankee06 -	Reply
Subject:	Please Explain this Statement
Date:	7/7/2009 10:02:38 AM

Hound,
-geeeeeeez Hound, you must have had a big staff. Everytime I put in a statement, you task me to do research on it. Please use this guy I know, Joe Google. He'll help you out immensely.

-but since I enjoy all your posts and in response to your request, here's some info on the Office of the DNI from its website:

"History of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Post-9/11 investigations included a joint Congressional inquiry and the independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (better known as the 9/11 Commission). The report of the 9/11 Commission in July 2004 proposed sweeping change in the Intelligence Community including the creation of a National Intelligence Director (NID). President Bush signed four Executive Orders in August 2004, which strengthened and reformed the Intelligence Community as much as possible without legislation. In Congress, both the House and Senate passed bills with major amendments to the National Security Act of 1947. Intense negotiations to reconcile the two bills ultimately led to the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which President Bush signed into law on December 17. In February 2005, the President announced that John D. Negroponte, ambassador to Iraq, was his nominee to be the first Director of National Intelligence and Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, USAF, as the first Principal Deputy DNI, which earned him his fourth star. On April 21, 2005, in the Oval Office, Amb. Negroponte and Gen. Hayden were sworn in, and the ODNI began operations at 7:00 AM on April 22."

NOTE from Yankee06: the two big points of this intell revampimg were: 1) the the head of the CIA was no longer also the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), i.e. also chief of the intell operations of all the other major government intell agencies. Prior to 2004 the CIA Director was dual-hatted. There was always a question of the DCI's impartiality when it came to conflicts between the CIA and the other agencies. 2) all the budget authorities of the 16 intell agencies now come under the approval of the DNI. The wording for this authority is a little murky, but because of the spirit of cooperation of the time (several years post9/11) the Sec Def agreed to the DNI overseeing and "approving" intell budgets of Deptartment of Defense intell agencies like National Security Agency, Defense Intell Agency, military Service agencies, the Natioanl Reconn Office (jointly run by CIA and the DoD. The DNI still seems to be wielding control over these budgets, ...and in D.C. budget is power.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Please Explain this Statement
Date:	7/7/2009 12:52:40 PM

I did actually have a large "staff" -- 250 people, but they would have known better than to send information up without providing the back up.

I'm not aware of any additional bureaucracy that was created when they brought the intell agencies under one Office. My recollection was that the position was considered to be basically "toothless" as it had responsibility without resources or additional budget. One good thing that came out of it, was that the various intelligence agencies cleaned house -- got rid of a lot of people with skills they no longer needed and brought in some others that they did need.

Even after 9/11 there was still a lot of distrust amongst the various intelligence agencies and the various reportings were not always consistent. My organization was a user of the intelligence products. DoD (that would be Doug Feith) so distrusted the CIA reporting (regarding Iraq) that he created a separate intelligence cell in his office.

I've been away from it for almost 3 years and I hope it has gotten better.

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