he just wouldnt make it a federal offense, states can still regulate it if they want.

 

Bummer. I got to rethink my plan.

Anybody want to buy seven tons of fertilizer?

 

nahh plenty of fertilizer coming out of DC to go around

 

Probably not a good idea for you to become a farmer, Raoul. The goats would just eat up your money crop, get the munchies and eat the tires off of your house!

 

Thank you all for finally coming to your senses:


https://www.f150online.com/forums/ge...riousness.html


Please don't forget to vote Ron Paul 2012!

Thank you,

Leonardo

 

I'm glad you posted this. I think we are pretty much in agreement about getting rid of TSA. Personally I think there should be some federal oversight of the screeners/baggage checkers to ensure they are complying with federal laws and regulations, but not much more. We do use TSA regulations in other areas of national security so at least a small part of that agency would probably need to be maintained, but if it goes away I fine with that also.

So Ron gets rid of the DHS overseers and cuts maybe 200 jobs. Now we have to reorganize the elements under DHS into other areas. Obviously USCG goes back to Transportation, FEMA goes back to where they came from, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) goes back to State, and the Secret Service goes back to Treasury. None of these moves changes employment numbers for any agency since they are already subcomponents directly under a department. With Customs and Border Protection that's a different story. Border Patrol would probably go back to Justice and become an agency directly under the secretary. That bump in stature will require and increase of personnel. Office of Field Operations would have to be broken up again, since it was mad from various elements and doesn't fit into any one department. So Customs and Border Protection officers would be split with some officers going to Immigration Inspectors and others going back to Customs Inspectors. Immigration would go either back to Justice or maybe fall under USCIS, which would result in the most savings. Customs officers would probably go back to Treasury. This is where the least improvement would come. All officers would get busted back to GS-9's cutting approx 30-50k from their pay. Sounds good so far, except right now since they are one unit a person working customs today can work immigration tomorrow resulting in a decrease of manpower. After splitting the officers up you would more than double the required manpower. That 30-50k savings just went away plus some. Air and Marine would also have to be split, So immigration would have their units and Customs would have their units. This would at most double the fleet at least increase it by 10-20%. Fortunately some savings would be seen (actually just no increase in personnel) by keeping the Air and Marine components under Immigration or Customs. Either way it would result in an increase of personnel and operating costs. The Agriculture specialists would go back to USDA, where management would have to be reestablished, further increasing personnel. Immigration and Custom Enforcement could be split up again. To reduce the cost of splitting this agency up they could be placed in the Immigration and Customs Bureaus respectively, but management would have to be reestablished and personnel increases would be seen.

As you should be able to see DHS brings many different specialties under one roof and allows for easy access to information. If one agency needs to obtain information from another it is very difficult if they work for different Secretaries. Formal channels must be followed and formal requests must be made, this slows the flow of information. Currently if BP goes to ICE or OFO to obtain information it is freely given since they work for the skunk. As to the effectiveness of the agencies a lot of that is driven by the idiot on Pennsylvania Ave and the skunk. A long time ago I was in the military and we had three illegals attempting to gain access to the base to work. We called BP and was told they don't come out for anything under five illegals. Currently I've seen BP move from a very effective fishing ground to sitting on back streets because leadership has told them to stop the operations. There are many people willing and wanting to do their jobs, but are being blocked by the politicians.

The increases in manpower assumes you want at least the same level of service and protection. If not, then a decrease in service should be expected with the decrease in "working" personnel (as opposed to "managing" personnel).

 

200 jobs? You have no idea.

It is a Cabinet level position.
The HQ is descibe thus: 32 buildings comprising 566,000 square feet of administrative space.
That would be mean each employee has 2,830 sq ft of admin space and only six people in each building.

The actual number of DHS 'overhead' employees isn't revealed but let's look at the published 'Order Of Succession' for this Cabinet Seat.

1.Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security
2.Under Secretary of Homeland Security for National Protection and Programs
3.Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Management
4.Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy (acting as Under Secretary-equivalent)
5.Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology
6.General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security
7.Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security (Transportation Security Administration)
8.Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
9.Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection
10.Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement
11.Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services
12.Chief Financial Officer
13.Regional Administrator, Region V, Federal Emergency Management Agency
14.Regional Administrator, Region VI, Federal Emergency Management Agency
15.Regional Administrator, Region VII, Federal Emergency Management Agency
16.Regional Administrator, Region IX, Federal Emergency Management Agency
17.Regional Administrator, Region I, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Each of those would have it's own staff and lord only knows how big the FIVE Regional offices are.

 

In case you missed it everything from 8 down will stay and move with the agency they work for, with the exception of 12. Not to mention the Commissioner of CBP would have his job broken into at least three positions maybe four. Numbers 2, 4, 5, 6, and 12 wouldn't nesessarily move as a unit, but many from those positions would transfer to one of the various gaining Departments. Although number 2 might be broken up and restaffed (increased personnel again) with each agency taken from DHS. Those services will still be needed and the Departments that already have them are going to need more people to handle the increased workload. That means you have effectively gotten rid of number 1, 3, and 7. 7 should be removed, seriously downsized, and placed under another agency with little more than review and regulatory powers anyway. 7 should be downsized to no more than a director level position with many of the line workers given back to the local airports. 7 would essentially be a "test and audit" department to ensure the locals are performing the job adequately. Failure to comply by the locals will result in hefty fines.

 

Now that I've poo-pooed Ron Paul's ideas of dismantling DHS here are my ideas. Take TSA and place it either under CBP or as a portion of the Coast Guard (Coast Guard makes more sense). Lay off most of the employees, but keep the inspectors. The inspectors go from airport to airport and seaport to seaport to evaluate their security, test the screeners, review their policies, and monitor compliance with those policies. Make ICE a part of CBP. The way the system is set up now the uniformed agencies responsible for enforcing the customs and immigration laws are not connected to the agency that performs the in depth investigations. This results in increased costs from duplicative efforts, training, and recruiting those in ICE as well as the typical government disconnect with information sharing. This move will have the agency responsible for enforcing customs and immigration laws resemble your local sheriff's office. This will get rid of many of the senior leadership positions and staff for ICE. With this move they could make it easier (less expensive) to recruit from "feeder" organizations such as OFO and BP who already have a background in customs and immigration laws and procedures. It would also allow ICE to shorten their follow on academy further saving money. This move would also make it easier to transfer basic investigative duties to the uniformed agencies freeing up ICE to conduct more in depth investigations or reducing the number HSI agents. If there is concern over the consolidation of power in DHS, move the Secret Service back to Treasury (no or little cost savings) and move Citizenship and Immigration back to State (some cost savings). State controls passports and visa so it makes sense to combine that section with Citizenship and Immigration for further cost savings.

As far as other agencies go: Combine USDA's rural development, HUD, FHA and VA home loan programs. This will save millions in personnel costs. Most banks have several investors and the processors, underwriters, and originators have to know all of the programs. This move would require the government employees to know four programs, which is not an overly burdensome amount of knowledge.

Upgrade OPM's retirement processing programs. Currently it takes approximately 6-8 months for OPM to figure out how much to pay a retiree because everything is done by hand. Since they have not automated, it is a very labor intensive process. Everything concerning an employee's career has been placed into computer databases for several years now. A simple Excel spreadsheet can figure out how much to pay an employee in retirement in about 2 minutes and that is with the employee having to find the information and putting it into the spreadsheet. There is no reason this can not be automated and cut many OPM employees from this program. For those hired recently it would be nothing to develop a program to enter the information into that subsequently generates the SF-50 (personnel action form) and enters the information into OPMs "retirement database", the program could also be used as a from here forward type deal, so even those who have been on the payroll several years would start having their information placed in the database automatically. For all of the information prior to implementation of the new system how tough is it to look at the first SF-50 to determine hire date then look at one every other year to ensure the person is still covered by the same retirement system. As that backlog is entered fewer people will be needed to enter the old information. If they use a two person concept (one enters and another verifies) it would be self auditing. It would also cost nothing to add a line of code to generate an automated e-mail to the employee whenever their file is updated, allowing them to verify the information is correct. The automated e-mail could also effectively work as the audit. Who better to make sure their retirement is correct than the person who would be receiving the retirement. I read an article not long ago that stated an OPM person can figure the retirement for approximately 6 people per day. That is doing the complete calculation. I don't see why a data entry specialist couldn't do at least 30 of just data entry.

Combine FDIC and NCUA, since they pretty much do the same thing except one for credit unions and one for banks.

The Department of Education needs to be severely reduced. Have national standards is great, but really education is a local issue. Having national standards up until high school is a good idea, but in high school a student should be allowed to start choosing their own course of study (making high school similar to college). If a student has no interest in business, then business classes are irrelevant. If a student has a great interest in building trades then those classes would serve that student best. Likewise if a student has no desire to leave the farm then more agri type classes would serve them best.

OPM's background investigating process needs to be reorganized. As it sits right now many agencies have taken over their process and implemented their own computer systems. This makes the process slow and idiotic. If a person has recent completed a background for a top secret clearance for the DoD it makes no sense to have them complete another one for the Secret Service and the two systems don't talk to each other. If OPM would require a certain program be utilized it would streamline to process greatly by allowing every agency to go into that system and pull up the investigation. As it is now if you have an investigation by DoD it can take 2-10 months for Secret Service to obtain that investigation, then they have to see if there are any issues not meeting their standards and make sure the investigation covers all of their needs. It is faster to just do their own investigation. If they could pull the investigation up on a computer, they could have the investigation in their hand in a matter of minutes and determine what, if anything, must be done to satisfy their needs within hours. This would greatly reduce the redundant efforts to complete the process.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9cn0M_AFWg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CHVI8Q-OXQ

 

Stoners would sell their own soul for one last toke. As long as it didn't require too much effort.

 

Pol Pot ("Paul pot") - That's a name that brings back memories.

- Jack

 

That's clever!

We don't need Paul to get the wacky tobacky laws fixed.

 

If you don't vote for Mitt, you can't have any pudding!

How can you have any pudding if you don't vote for Mitt?!

 

How many drinks did you have last night Raoul?