Iain, I could not agree more. The public needs to see something tangible — like a wrecker’s ball smashing through one of the useless federal bureaucracies, such as Commerce (as you suggest), Energy, or Education. We should be ruthlessly bipartisan in this: The recent Atlanta school district cheating scandal is a direct result of Bush’s foolish No Child Left Behind, “compassionate conservatism” malarkey, so let’s use it as an excuse to shut down the entire Carter-era excrescence. Ditto the Dept. of Energy, another gift to the nation by the peanut farmer.
The public is beginning to suspect that all this talk of saving millions, billions, trillions, and gazillions in “out” years, plus accounting tricks, plus decreases in the rate of increase is just a bunch of hooey. It’s time to give ’em what they voted for last fall – pour encourager les autres.