Some people might say, "Williams, the programs that you'd cut are vital to the welfare of our nation!" When someone says that, I always ask, what did we do before? For example, our nation went from 1787 to 1979 – and during that interval produced some of the world's most highly educated people – without a Department of Education. Since the department's creation, American primary and secondary education has become a joke among industrialized nations.
What about the Department of Energy; how much energy has it produced?
-Walter Williams
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=272529
It's not just the Dept. of Energy. The Education Dept. is a mostly worthless money pit, the FDA, USDA & others the same. And on and on it goes. As much as it hurts to say, The Greatest Generation drowned us in pickle juice. Mostly by spending too little time on paying attention to the bigger world around them & blindly going along with programs that looked good on paper as self serving ideologues created a federal monster. Many got the 2nd car, the boat and the bigger house, a liberal college education for their kids, and a 401k (or other pension) after WWII, but neglected to oversee or deal with the thieves in D.C. and many statehouses across the country that let the bills run up for their kids, grandkids & generations beyond. On top of that, their desire to 'make sure their kids never had to suffer like many of them did' led to a spoiling of their offspring that has led to an irresponsible entitlement mentality. They can claim ignorance, but rape & pillage by proxy is still rape and pillage. Ignorance is no excuse.