[mensetmanusman]

I like the framing of agencies as task forces, because it gives clear goals, then it prepares people for knowing it’s temporary. It also provides an off ramp to resist a situation where admin and bureaucracy always grows.

[hunbcfgd]

What is “temporary” about stopping corporations from poisoning local ecosystems for profit?

What is “temporary” about validating new food or pharmaceutical products?

[dvdhnt]

I’d argue the regulatory unit ought to be temporary while enforcement is ongoing. Permanent organizations are just as ineffective. They did nothing to protect our food supply from ingredients banned in other countries. They did nothing to stop microplastics from taking over the world.

So exactly what are they good for while sitting around pontificating for years on end?

[hunbcfgd]

You’re arguing these orgs should have full support and backing of the government to exert total control (“do something about microplastics” and “banning specific imports”) but because we either failed to give them or they failed to use such powers (“did nothing to stop microplastics”) that we should remove all of their power and backing?

Look, I’m all for addressing plastics and unhealthy foods, but is that really the outcome you’re predicting from the organization being discussed and the people running it?

Their words and past actions lead me to believe they are the “pro plastics” “pro unhealthy foods” people, and their effort, rather than some altruistic motivation you ascribe them, is in fact to remove the last vestiges of guardrails, however weak and inept, against them promoting those sorts of things to an even greater degree.

[unsnap_biceps]

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. We have the safest food supply in the entire history of humanity and there still improvements to go, but just removing all that progress because it wasn't perfect seems insane to me.

You want more things banned? Removing all existing regulations will not get you there.

[dvdhnt]

Sorry, I didn't mean to remove regulations. I meant that maybe the regulatory side of the agencies should meet as needed with enforcement being the thing that is perpetual.

[unsnap_biceps]

Generally the regulatory side is made up of scientists and data analysis folks that build data to back regulatory actions and ensure they're working as intended. How do you envision the regulatory side working? Wait for congress to say, "Hey, look into this?" and then spin up a few thousand temps to crunch numbers and figure out a action? Often times it takes years to build a regulatory stance. If so, how do you forsee holding actions accountable if there isn't a persistent level of folks validating areas of concern across the nation?

I totally understand that the government feels bloated and we could cut costs in plenty of areas, but I think it's way more effective to apoint people into leadership positions that can take a real deep look at things and actually cut what makes sense. Any sort of rapid deep cuts is only going to harm us as a society and likely not actually save that much money. No matter how much money you saved, when you spin up something new that is basically starting from scratch, you're going to spend way more then just fixing what exists.

I think it's the classic coder's dilemma, The code's shit, do I refactor it in place or do I replace it from scratch. Any small or even medium sized project, replacing it from scratch could be the right thing to do, but when you get into large projects, replacing it is just not the right decision if you're trying to save money.

IMHO, refactor the government, don't replace.

[thrw42A8N]

The way you do it.

[hunbcfgd]

The it do you way.

[blackeyeblitzar]

I do like your idea of temporary funding as an automatic off ramp. But my experience is that jurisdiction that have things like temporary levies just end up with voters blindly renewing those levies. Why? Because they’re told a scary story of how the basic services they rely on will be first to go (instead of the agencies cutting out wasteful or non critical spending first). If there’s no choice or competition, you end up being forced to pay for them because of these games.

Even if they’re not temporary though, agencies should have clear goals, metrics, and be held accountable to those. For example how many times have we seen wasteful spending on opaque homelessness programs on the west coast with zero results?

In my opinion we need to rethink how agencies are funded. Why do we need to give a bloated government a big tax check instead of having agencies work hard to win customers and charge them fees? Agencies should also (sometimes but not always) be forced to face competition from alternative private providers to keep the pressure of competition on.