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Mulvaney’s Plans for Government Reform

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“It’s been almost a hundred years since anybody’s really reorganized the government…We are still dealing with a Government from the early 20th Century.” – Mick Mulvaney

OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is one of my favorites within the Trump Administration. He brings a common sense approach to issues.

Mulvaney was named the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and has worked to reign in what had been an uncontrolled Agency with virtually unlimited power.

As noted by Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee:

The CFPB is the most powerful and unaccountable agency in the history of the republic.

Hensarling is correct.

For more details see: Mulvaney’s CFPB Oversight & Pocahontas’ Panic (No, I won’t apologize for the article’s title).

Mulvaney has recently turned his attention to the formulation of plans for government reform. The idea was generated by an Executive Order that asked OMB to gather all the government agencies and embark on an effort to fix their structure:

After a year of planning how to make the Federal Government more efficient, effective, and accountable – which included input from stakeholders, agencies, and the public – key reform proposals were developed, such as:

  • Consolidating food safety functions into a single agency, addressing the current fragmented Federal oversight of food safety.
  • Merging the Departments of Education and Labor into a single Cabinet agency to better meet the needs of American workers and students.
  • Consolidating economic assistance resources to a new Bureau of Economic Growth within the Department of Commerce to increase economic growth nationwide.

Today’s Federal Government lacks the organization and technology to provide the convenient and efficient services that Americans have come to expect in the 21st century. For example:

  • Job seekers have to navigate more than 40 workforce development programs across 15 Federal agencies.
  • Small businesses face overlapping, bureaucratic certification processes and complicated paperwork challenges when they try to work with the Government.
  • Poultry companies have to deal with multiple Government offices and loads of paperwork because chickens and eggs are regulated by different agencies.

As Mulvaney notes; “Businesses change all the time. Government doesn’t.”

He also provides some comically illustrative examples:

The USDA regulates chickens. When the chicken lays an egg that’s governed by the FDA. When you break the egg and put it into an omelette that’s regulated by the USDA.

When you have a cheese pizza that is regulated by the FDA. But as soon as you put a pepperoni on it, it’s regulated by the USDA.

This. Is. Stupid.

Other examples are more frustrating:

There are actually 20 different federal agencies that deal with financial education and literacy programs. Most of them have no idea if they are effective or not.

What we do is try and figure out the ones that actually know if they are helping people and figure out a way to give them more money and get rid of the ones that don’t work.

This is what the government reorganization is all about. It’s been hinted at in our budgets but this is where the real rubber meets the road.

There are two videos detailing Mulvaney’s plans.

The first is the shorter version (3:24) – Minute with Mulvaney: Government Reform Explained.

The second video is a bit longer (7:13) and features an energetic Mulvaney presenting his plan more formally during a cabinet meeting.

Both are well worth your time. I found the more lengthy video particularly enjoyable. It’s been a long time since government was approached from a business vantage point.

Here is the shorter version. From a Minute with Mulvaney: Government Reform Explained:

Here is the cabinet meeting version:

In my opinion, any attempt at government reform is worthwhile:

Of course, many on the Left feel otherwise:

A rebuttal was sorely needed:

The Trump Administration is making real, substantive changes. Resistance will be fierce but progress is being made.

Meanwhile, I continue to go through the Inspector General’s Report – while ignoring the sudden noise raised by the Left on the immigration debate. As ironically noted by Robert Barnes:

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older post Bombshell Moments from Day Two of the Inspector General’s Testimony