"Vote for me, 'cause I'm stupid."

I cringe every time I hear a politician say, "If elected I would shut down the Department of Commerce" (or Transportation, or Labor, or whatever).  Such talk shows me they're simple minded and prone to knee-jerk solutions to complex problems.  It would be like your doctor saying, "Your foot hurts?  I'll just cut it off.  That'll fix everything." That's stupid.


Here's what I would do:  I would appoint select committees of experienced executive people from all disciplines (current or retired), from all walks of life, all geographic areas, etc, who are NOT political activists to look into how our government operates.  Specifically they would go into each department and look closely at each PROGRAM the department administers. Is it even necessary?  What benefit does it provide?   At what cost?  Is it overly complex?  Is it bureaucratically top heavy?  (Aren't they all?)  What could be streamlined/eliminated?  Does it duplicate a program already existing in another department?  If so could they all be rolled into one program?  Etc....


Maybe an entire department could be eliminated, or maybe just cut back 20 or 30 or 40%.  Still, I think we would have a lot more confidence in our government if we felt it was running smoothly and efficiently.  'Course, the special interests would all go berserk for undoing all the things they've rigged over the past 30 years, but screw 'em!  I think you'd see a lot of political "pork" fall by the wayside.  That's a good thing!


Remember years ago when Washington realized we had too many military bases?  Even the military brass agreed.  Trouble was, Congress was too spineless to close a base for fear of making the home folks unhappy and risking their rath at the polls in November.  They wisely set up a Base Closure Committee to decide which bases were necessary and which were to be closed.  Their findings were AUTOMATICALLY implimented unless Congress specifically voted base-by-base to override it.  This gave the individual congressmen a face-saving way to say back home,  "Hey, I tried to save our local base, but couldn't.  Sorry."


Likewise, I would send the recommendations of my committees back to Congress and the President where they would be AUTOMATICALLY implimented unless Congress/POTUS specifically gave a reprieve on a program-by-program basis.  They wouldn't have to publicly make the tough choices, but could still say they backed a particular program but just couldn't save it.  In Washington it's all about "saving face".


This is something I think could and should be done periodically at every level of government...city, county, state, and federal.  Besides the instance mentioned above, has this ever happened before?  I'm not aware of it if it has.  Are any of you close enough to an elected official to take this idea to them?  Please, before we become the next Greece.


S