POLITICS NOVEMBER 11, 2011
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Rick Perry’s “Oops” on Wednesday joined the small canon of legendary phrases from presidential debates, right up there with “You’re no Jack Kennedy.” His inability to remember one of the three government agencies he would promise to eliminate as president, together with his smirking indifference to whether it even mattered, was probably the final moment of a candidacy that was already doomed by his lack of preparation for the national stage.
But does it matter? Would it have made any difference if Perry had been able to smoothly reel off the names of three agencies, as Newt Gingrich certainly could, and then pad his answer out with some erudite-sounding pabulum about how we need a leaner 21st-century government for the new challenges of a globalized world?
In a way, Perry’s flub, and subsequent smirk, was the most honest moment yet in the long march of Republican debates. Perry couldn’t remember the agencies he would eliminate because he wouldn’t actually eliminate any. And neither would President Newt Gingrich or President Mitt Romney. (Ron Paul probably would.) Promising to eliminate cabinet departments is simply a pro forma requirement of Republican rhetoric. It has been for decades. Perry’s indifference to the substance of the promise seemed to admit, “We all know this is just something I’m supposed to say.”
How do I know that Gingrich or Romney wouldn’t eliminate any cabinet departments or major agencies either? Because Gingrich, for one, had his chance. Full of bluster in 1995, he promised to eliminate up to four cabinet agencies, starting with the Department of Education. I was working on the Hill at the time, and I remember seriously expecting a fight over eliminating at least one department, as well as an expectation that President Clinton would have to offer up one cabinet agency as a sacrifice to the god of triangulation. Older colleagues were more cynical, and I should have listened to them—the promise was quickly forgotten.
Ronald Reagan had made the same promise, focusing on the Department of Education, which had been created less than a year earlier and was seen as a Democratic gesture to the teachers’ unions. Even though the department had far less to do at that time, Reagan didn’t do much to keep his promise either, and later became a strong advocate of a federal role in K-12 education.
Promising to eliminate cabinet departments or agencies is downsizing government on the cheap. To conservative base voters it sounds like a big deal—eliminating three out of fifteen cabinet departments, and all their functions, would have to be a major cut in the size of government. But are the candidates promising to eliminate the functions of those agencies? Of course not. The Commerce Department carries out the census, which is required by the Constitution, and only Michelle Bachmann is actually anti-census. Nor have the candidates identified other functions within Commerce that they would cut. (The libertarian CATO Institute, to its credit, has proposed that eight small Commerce Department programs be offered up for total elimination, saving a total of $2 billion, or 12 percent of the Department’s total budget.) The Education Department administers student loans and Pell Grants, as well as federal aid to local school systems. Have the candidates, other than Ron Paul, proposed to eliminate these functions?
For policy wonks, eliminating the Department of Commerce, for example, makes a lot of sense. It’s too small, its functions don’t fit together naturally, and a few of them should be eliminated. Same with the Department of Energy. There’s a strong case to be made that the biggest program within its domain, the nuclear weapons complex, belongs in the Department of Defense, and its other programs could be reallocated as well. The Energy Department was obviously created as a political gesture to show that government cared about the energy crisis of the 1970s, and the most recently created agency, the Department of Homeland Security, was similarly a gesture to the worries of the moment, in 2002. It’s probably too big and cumbersome as well, with some functions that had been better off within the Justice or State Departments.
But reorganizing those agencies wouldn’t have much impact on the actual size or cost of government. The Republican candidates want voters to hear “eliminate programs” when all they really mean is, maybe, rearrange some functions. And they probably don’t mean even that. Reorganizing the functions of government is time-consuming work that requires patience, a willingness to expend political capital, and an actual interest in making government work better. That’s the very opposite of the Republicans’ “say anything” brand of politics.
Instead of asking candidates which cabinet agencies they would eliminate, the debate moderators should be asking the candidates to name the major things that government does that it should stop doing, completely. Converting programs to block grants doesn’t count as an answer. Neither does “collecting taxes.” If the question was asked that way, every one of the candidates, with the possible exceptions of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, would quickly become as forgetful as Rick Perry.
Mark Schmitt is a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and former editor of The American Prospect.
10 comments
Commerce is probably the most eclectic department. NOAA and NIST thrown in with actual commerce stuff. Maybe NOAA, NIST, NIH, NSF and some of the Energy department can be merged into a Department of Science, and the rest of Energy and Commerce can be dispersed into other departments.
- WillPastor
November 11, 2011 at 8:03am
Gov. Perry had embraced the streamlining/consolidation portion of Senator Tom Coburn's July 2011 "Back in Black" 626 page plan, which made Coburn an instant heretic to the Norquistian Republicans. Seems Tom Coburn was an industrial engineer for some years before he went to medical school. No one wanted to hear Perry try to explain the nuances of streamlining, neither examples of what he has done in Texas, nor what Coburn and the GAO propose at the Federal level. Then Ron Paul came up with his plan to eliminate five Cabinet Agencies (Education, Commerce, Interior, Energy, and HUD, I think). I am not defending the Perry campaign's decision to cave to the Paulistian approach, and I was very disappointed that Cain's 9-9-9 tax trickery led Perry into Steve Forbes' flat tax world. I SHALL defend Perry from those who claim to be serious from snarky juvenile attacks as in - Perry does NOT smirk. Herman Cain SMIRKS. I think Coburn's plan needs serious consideration NOW, and am glad he is back to continue speaking up for many of the specifics until his term ends in 2014. Anyone with large company private sector or military experience knows that there is an effective SPAN of Control for each level of management. Clearly, the Federal Executive branch has far too many agencies with direct reporting to the President, whose main function really is CinC and conduct of foreign relations, which require different skill sets from the management of the bureaucracy. One of the reasons why American voters are schizophrenic over the presidency, especially since LBJ's expansive Great Society. Well, interesting post despite the personal snark, and failure to comprehend that Perry knows the concept if streamlining/consolidation, not elimination of entire cabinet dept's, but every time he tried to explain that, the media smacked him down, and the GOP are digging their grave again by treating Tom Coburn as an heretic, just like the Democrats are digging their own grave again by rejecting the fiscal conservatives who gave Pelosi and Reid their majorities. From the Executive Summary of Coburn's "Back in Black": "...Consolidating overlapping programs can actually improve efficiency while reducing costs. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report exposed how duplication within the federal government is wasting hundreds of billions of dollars every year. ―This fragmentation can create difficulties for people in accessing services as well as administrative burdens for providers who must navigate various application requirements,‖ GAO noted. ―The lack of coordination‖ caused by duplication poses a ―barrier to the delivery of services‖ to those in need, according to GAO. ..." http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=413f351a-2588-4017-ad8a-99891e956bc6
- K2K
November 11, 2011 at 8:48am
True. And this doesn't bother you? That it's just become pro-forma for Republican candidates to make a promise to eliminate some agency or other, and such a promise shouldn't be taken seriously? What, are the Republican electorate so ignorant and jaded that they require their leaders to lie to them now? Reagan DID try to eliminate the Departement of Education, as well as Social Security. But he did not succeed. When people promise to do destructive things, I don't think their words should be ignored, just because there's enough opposition so far to prevent their succeeding. And when they DO try to do destructive things, and fail, because better people prevented it, again they shouldn't get CREDIT for that.
- AllanL5
November 11, 2011 at 12:59pm
Agreed -- let's get real. The Republicans are promising to dismantle departments and reduce services that millions of Americans depend on. Only committed opposition to that destructive and short-sighted vision will prevent that. Pretending that their promise isn't a promise because it can't succeed today is a bad way of motivating that opposition. If they're being hypocritical and don't really believe what they're saying, they should be condemned for that. If they're being incompetent and can't achieve what they're saying, they should be condemned for that. Either way, what they're proposing is short-sighted and destructive. We've had quite enough of that with the Bush years.
- AllanL5
November 11, 2011 at 1:04pm
K2K I don't understand you sometimes:) Texas isn't really doing all that well is it? When it really comes down to it - health, education, access to medical care, progressive values? Allan5 is right, this is kind of like pretending some of our friends in the ME don't mean what they say. It's patronizing among other things. Me, I believe 'em. I believe Perry too. Why shouldn't I be very concerned about this guy?
- Sophia
November 11, 2011 at 1:59pm
Very interesting comment, K2K. Perhaps better than the original post.
- skahn
November 11, 2011 at 2:04pm
Sophia, thousands of Americans are still moving to Texas every week, four million in the last ten years, and it's not for the weather. Do you not remember how Texas welcomed tens of thousands of Katrina evacuees?, and many of them never moved back to New Orleans because they found jobs and affordable housing in Texas, which now has a Triple-A bond rating. Ah, so it is okay for Democrats to always promise to make government work better, root out waste and fraud, go through the budget line by line (Obama sure promised THAT!), and then spend $16 per person for an offsite training event? I know it was not a $16 muffin, but, after 25 years of corporate work, where the norm was NO meetings offsite, even NO coffee for on-site meetings, I find the Democrats as hypocritical about their promises as the GOP. That is why I find Tom Coburn's plan that builds off the GAO so interesting. Yet Coburn is now shunned by the GOP! Where is Obama's leadership on the United States Postal Service dilemma, which is mostly caused by a Federal law requiring the USPS to fully fund pensions and health insurance for retirees for 75 years???? How many people are going to lose jobs because of this insane law? I do understand Ron Paul's position on shutting down five cabinet agencies because he is a literalist on the 10th Amendment. I do not know where he put the Census Bureau because that is in the Constitution, but, after a month+ nightmare with the Census Bureau over my refusal to participate in their American Community Survey as REQUIRED BY LAW (what law requires me to tell them how much I spend on electricity every month?), maybe a small office that can gear up every ten years is a good idea. My nightmare finally ended when the third caller from the Census Bureau (part-time, no benefits) realized, probably after listening to my meltdown with the first caller three weeks ago, that he really only needed answers to the first eight questions, which ended with whether this house has hot and cold running water. More intrusive than my tax returns!
- K2K
November 11, 2011 at 8:40pm
Sophia - about education. I spent $30,000 of my own savings to re-train to become a social studies teacher in The Bronx 2002-2005. Quite an eye-opener on education because I observed in a range of schools as part of the master's program. There is no correlation between money spent per student and outcome. You act like Texas is a 3rd world hell-hole, when I would suggest it is New York that is a failure with not much to show but mountains of debt.
- K2K
November 11, 2011 at 8:45pm
K2K, depending on who you are, Texas is a third world hell-hole and this goes for any other place in the US. This is what we need to address as a nation. I seriously doubt that Perry or any other Republican honestly has the heart to address or even see this fact.
- Sophia
November 12, 2011 at 3:47pm
You should get out more Sophia. There is a long list of genuine "third-world hell-holes" that you could visit and improve your perspective on Texas and "any other place in the US". It would be a good idea to really tackle the fact that government is far too big, far too expensive, and in many cases far too inefficient in doing what it needs to do. Of course Schmitt is completely right to note that it ain't gonna happen no matter who gets elected. Incumbents in both parties have far too much vested interest in the status quo, and in fact in expanding their bureaucratic empires even more.
- Robert Powell
November 14, 2011 at 6:07am