Broken Government? Your Assignment: Fix it

(This news from last year, reported on Political Warrior)

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration proposed new import safety rules that it said would give consumers new confidence and regulators new muscle in the face of a nearly $2 trillion annual flood of imports and a spate of troubling recalls involving tainted food and defective products.

The rules were announced even as the administration's top product safety regulator defended her agency's actions -- and her own controversial travel record -- before a congressional committee.

Devised by a presidential Cabinet-level working group on import safety, the rules will give agencies like the Food and Drug Administration new authority to order product recalls if manufacturers refuse.

The full Chicago Tribune story is linked here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-safety_wednov07,1,5431870.story

The plan was applauded by critics of the bureaucracy under Bush. There have been calls by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Presidential Candidate John Edwards for the acting chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Nancy Nord to resign. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls it a "national embarrassment."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/338888_means09.html

Mike Adams,the creator of the above cartoon, thinks things are just as bad at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA):"Of all the cartoons we've ever done on the FDA, this is the one that people seem to like the best.

It addresses the issue of FDA conflicts of interest. The Food and Drug Administration, an agency that suffers under the hallucination that it protects the public from dangerous foods and drugs, has actually become the marketing department of Big Pharma. It actually takes money from drug companies in exchange for evaluating and approving their drugs, and the decisions concerning which drugs to approve almost always come down to a panel of "experts" who have strong financial ties to the very companies impacted by their decisions.''

Well, if it's "Broken Government" then your job to fix it.

Your Assignment:
go to: http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/fedgov.html

In groups (1-through-4) , you will be assigned a governmental agency (either executive departments, independent agencies, or a executive board or committee). Your group will research the agency and a major policy initiative. For next Thursday the group will have:

1. A Fact Sheet -- Who you are and what you do.

2. A policy proposal -- What is your big plan to make this country work better. What do you need from the appropriations committee to make it work?

3. A 5-minute pursuasive presentation -- Plan a pitch to get a piece of the pie.
_________________

2nd Hour --

Ones -- Department of Labor (DOL)/ Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Twos - Department of the Interior (DOI)/Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Threes -- Housing & Urban Development (HUD)/Amtrak
Fours -- Department of Energy (DOE)/Social Security Administration (SSA)

3rd Hour --
Ones -- Department of Transportation (DOT)/Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA)
Twos - Health & Human Services (HHS)/Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
Threes -- Department of Justice (DOJ)/NASA
Fours -- Department of Treasury/National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH)