ELIMINATING FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

There is lots of brave talk about getting rid of federal government departments.  This is nothing new and goes on all the time.*  Usually the proposals really are not to really get rid of the functions of the department but just to move them elsewhere, sometimes to the states.

President-Elect Trump says he plans to get rid of the Departments of Education and EPA (that he calls the Department of the Environment - DEP).**  It also looks like he wants to get rid of the Department of Labor because his nomination for Secretary of Labor is hostile to labor.  He has some surprises coming.  To the best of my knowledge, no Federal Department has ever been eliminated. They have only increased in number.***

For example, the Department of Commerce and Labor was split into the Departments of Commerce and Labor.  Department of Health Education And Welfare was split into Departments of Health and Human Services and Education.

The original Department of the U.S. Government was the Department of War (estab. 1879). In 1947, this Department was split into the Departments of the Army and Air Force.  Then the departments of The Army, Navy and Air Force were combined into the Department of Defense in 1949, but the divisions still exist, still called Departments, and we still have sub-cabinet level Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Even getting rid of Federal Bureaus is difficult, but does occur. **** Some examples are the Bureau of Prohibition and more recently, the United States Bureau of Mines.  Much of the staff of the Bureau of Mines was distributed between the Department of Energy (after which some of the employees were transferred again, this time to HHS), the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management.  About 1,000 employees were let go, fewer than 50%.  The last Director of the Bureau of Mines was an African American lady Rhea Lydia Graham who was appointed shortly before the Bureau was shut down.  I wonder if she knew that was going to be her job?

One reason it is so hard to close Federal Agencies and Bureaus is that Senators and Representatives dearly love to be Chairman of a Committee or at least a Sub-Committee preferably several.  Also being a member of these groups lends prestige.

So President-Elect Trump has his work cut out for him.

* http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/how-to-eliminate-almost-every-federal-agency/452961/
** “The Department of Environmental,” Trump replied. “I mean, the DEP is killing us environmentally, it’s just killing our businesses.”  Who is going to tell him there is no department with that name. (http://grist.org/climate-energy/trump-wants-to-eliminate-the-department-of-environmental-colbert-points-out-a-problem/).  It has been pointed out that NYC (where Trump lives) does have such a department, but I doubt he is talking about that.
http://kut.org/post/why-eliminating-government-agency-isnt-simple
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_executive_departments
**** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Defunct_agencies_of_the_United_States_government