Thursday, February 11, 2016

Republican Presidential Debates and the Weaponization of Federal Bureaucracies




These republican presidential debates have revealed very little about where candidates stand on the issues.  Most questions are “he said this about you, do you have a response?”  I’m sick of that crap!  I can recall only a couple of times when substantive issues were brought forth that actually piqued my interest and changed my mind about a candidate.  One was centered on the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship, the other was about Kim Davis and religious freedom.  Carly Fiornia lost my support because of those two issues.


I can recall only a couple of times when a debate broke out during these inquisitions.  Fox Business had the courtesy to sit back and allow Rand Paul, Donald Trump and Jeb Bush hash out tariff policies.  What a welcomed change.


There might have been other issues that I missed, simply because I get bored and diverted my attention to something of substance such as an article or a book.


An issue that really needs to be addressed is the weaponization of the federal bureaucracy.  How are these candidates going to address a branch of government that is antagonistic to their agenda?  What are they going to do about bureaucrats that target conservatives?  This is a serious problem.  Even USA Today wrote about the lawlessness in Washington D.C.


The first sad lesson is that the notion of an impartial, professional civil service is a fiction. The big government designs of Democrats and the federal bureaucracy are aligned, and the bureaucracy often deploys its powers in ways calculated to frustrateRepublican presidents and to protect Democratic ones.

This is an open secret in Washington, leading Bloomberg View writer Megan McArdle to comment that even if elected, a President Trump wouldn’t change much because the bureaucracy wouldn’t go along:

“Anything that gets done by Washington must be done by the civil service. These folks are lifers. You can’t fire them. Because of the abovementioned legislative compromises required, you also can’t push a bill through that will let you fire them. And they — not the president, and not the cabinet secretaries — are the folks who do most of what government does. The president can wave his hands like Jean-Luc Picard and say, ‘Make it so.’ But if they don’t wanna, they ain’t gonna.


That is the honest truth.  Progressives constantly declare we live in a democracy.  How is this democracy when bureaucrats do as they damn well please without fear of retribution?  How is this democracy when your vote can be canceled out by a bureaucrat with an agenda?

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