Political

President Trump signed the sweeping Executive Order 13781 on March 13, 2017, entitled “Comprehensive Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch.”  The Director of the Office of Management and Budget was instructed to develop a plan “to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies.”  Each agency head had to submit a reorganization plan by September 11, 2017 to increase efficiency and accountability.

Recently the resulting report "Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century" was posted on the White House website (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Government-Reform-and-Reorg-Plan.pdf).  The report says that some of its objectives can be achieved through executive action and some will require Congressional legislation.  Priorities listed include:

 1. "Merge the Departments of Education and Labor into a single Cabinet agency, the Department of Education and the Workforce, charged with meeting the needs of American students and workers from education and skill development to workplace protection to retirement security."

1. 2. "Move the non-commodity nutrition assistance programs currently in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service into the Department of Health and Human Services—which will be renamed the Department of Health and Public Welfare."
2. 3. "Move the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) Civil Works out of the Department of Defense (DOD) to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of the Interior (DOI) to consolidate and align the Corps’ civil works missions with these agencies."
3. 4. "Reorganize the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and the food safety functions of HHS’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) into a single agency within USDA that would cover virtually all the foods Americans eat."
4. 5. "Merge the Department of Commerce’s (Commerce) National Marine Fisheries Service with DOI’s Fish and Wildlife Service. This merger would consolidate the administration of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act in one agency and combine the Services’ science and management capacity, resulting in more consistent Federal fisheries and wildlife policy and improved service to stakeholders and the public, particularly on infrastructure permitting."
5. 6. "Restructure the U.S. Postal System to return it to a sustainable business model or prepare it for future conversion from a Government agency into a privately-held corporation. The President’s Task Force on the United States Postal System will make recommendations on reforms towards this goal in August 2018."
6. 7. "Reorganize DOT to better align the agency’s core missions and programmatic responsibilities, reduce transportation program fragmentation across the Government, and improve outcomes. Changes would include spinning off Federal responsibility for operating air traffic control services, integrating into DOT certain coastal and inland waterways commercial navigation activities and transportation security programs, and reassessing the structure and responsibilities of DOT’s Office of the Secretary."
7. 8. "Transform the way the Federal Government delivers support for the U.S. housing finance system to ensure more transparency and accountability to taxpayers, and to minimize the risk of taxpayer-funded bailouts, while maintaining responsible and sustainable support for homeowners. Proposed changes, which would require broader policy and legislative reforms beyond restructuring Federal agencies and programs, include ending the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reducing their role in the housing market, and providing an explicit, limited Federal backstop that is on-budget and apart from the Federal support for low- and moderate-income homebuyers.
8. 9. "Rethink how the Federal Government can drive economic growth in concert with private-sector investments in communities across the Nation by coordinating and consolidating Federal economic assistance resources into a Bureau of Economic Growth at Commerce, producing a higher return on taxpayer investment on projects that are transparent and accountable."

The above are just a handful of the reforms recommended in the 132-page report.  Please see the above link and read the report online for more information about how President Trump and his administration are proposing to streamline the Federal government and make it more efficient and accountable.  This is yet one more example of how President Trump is living up to his campaign promises to restore America.