The 19 Federal Agencies Trump Wants to Eliminate

President Trump has finally delivered his budget blueprint to Congress, and in it, he’s proposing to entirely eliminate 19 federal agencies. Many of these agencies are superfluous, redundant or should be the responsibilities of states, rather than the federal government.

In many cases, we’re sending money outside the country to help foreign organizations and governments while our own country falls deeper into debt and has a dangerous and crumbling infrastructure. The bottom line is, we simply can’t afford these agencies, and in too many cases, their worthlessness has been proven many times over.

Here’s a rundown of the 19 agencies President Trump proposes we do away with, along with what each agency does:

  1. The African Development Foundation

This agency funds African community development, agriculture and infrastructure using grants (not loans). Sounds great, but shouldn’t we be focusing on fixing our country first, before we talk about assisting other countries?

  1. The Appalachian Regional Commission

This organization is meant to be an independent booster of economic development, culture, education and business in Appalachia. But the states that Appalachia lies in are already responsible for doing the same thing, making this agency redundant.

  1. The Chemical Safety Board

This agency purports to make safety recommendations to the chemical industry after investigating accidents, but it’s actually both redundant and ineffective, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

The Board has had scandals of mismanagement and turnover in its upper leadership, and there’s even confusion in the organization about its overall mission.

  1. The Corporation for National and Community Service

This agency houses a number of public service organizations, including AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps gives summer and after-school jobs to youth helping to clean up inner cities and community spaces, but many argue that jobs for America’s teens are the responsibility of local communities and/or private enterprise. If states and municipalities want to fund their own programs doing this, they have a perfect right to.

  1. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting oversees National Public Radio (NPR), the notoriously liberal broadcast network which is paid for with American tax dollars while it blasts the president and conservatives in Congress nearly 24 hours per day.

Even NPR’s own executives have been caught on tape saying the network would be better off with 100-percent private funding.

  1. The Delta Regional Authority

This agency funds infrastructure and businesses in the Mississippi Delta region, but once again, this should be the job of states in that area.

  1. The Denali Commission

Denali is the American Indian name for Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in America, which lies in Alaska. It’s the job of this commission to support infrastructure and utilities in the region, but again, these are items that should be Alaska’s responsibility, not the federal government’s.

  1. The Institute of Museum and Library Services

This agency gives grants to libraries and museums. This is something we can’t afford at a federal level and should be left up to states to appropriate.

  1. The Inter-American Foundation

This organization provides economic aid to the Caribbean and Latin America. But like the African Development Corporation, above, its presence should make taxpayers wonder why helping other countries is more of a priority than helping our own.

  1. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency

This agency provides U.S. services and goods for foreign development projects, especially those focused on climate change and renewable energy. But much of the science behind these projects is debatable and there’s even an argument to be made that these programs allow developing nations to compete unfairly trade-wise with the U.S.

  1. The Legal Services Corporation

This agency provides legal aid and representation for low-income Americans. All too often, however, this aid is either redundant, superfluous or wasted, as many judges are already extremely sympathetic to low-income citizens. In many — if not all — cases, states also have similar agencies in place.

Even worse, the program has a history of being employed for citizens to sue their own local officials and governments. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! Previous Republican administrations have tried (and failed) to eliminate this agency.

  1. The National Endowment for the Arts

This has been a perennial thorn in the side of conservatives. Yes, the U.S. government has funded arts projects that have promoted pornography, sadomasochistic relationships, homosexuality and child sex. Not only is much of this art completely inappropriate, but artists have traditionally always had to find their own patrons (of which there are more than enough).

  1. The National Endowment for the Humanities

This agency helps young people study the liberal arts (emphasis on “liberal”) through grants. However, the government already has many, many other college loan and grant programs, as do all states, most colleges and private enterprises.

  1. The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation

This agency funds community development projects. Isn’t this the job of states and municipalities? Why should the federal government be funding projects that end up turning urban Democrat machine politicians into heroes?

  1. The Northern Border Regional Commission

Like the Appalachian Regional Commission, above, this agency focuses on economic development in blighted areas near the Canadian border. But like the Appalachian Commission, this should be left up to the states whose areas this agency encompasses.

  1. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation

Are any bells of redundancy ringing yet? One might want to ask how many separate foreign aid agencies there are in our federal government. This is yet another superfluous one, or at least until such time as America’s own needs are met.

  1. The United States Institute of Peace

This agency purports to promote peace through scholarship, training programs and conflict resolution, but if this is the case, why are there so many regional wars year after year (particularly those that the U.S. seeks to get involved in)?

Rather than throwing money into a useless agency like this, the government should simply exit regional wars and conflicts (as President Trump has vowed) that have drained our Treasury of trillions and simply de-fund them in cases where their belligerents seek U.S. support (i.e., in nearly all of them).

  1. The United States Interagency Council on the Homeless

50 years ago, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” More than 22 trillion dollars later, the percentage of poor citizens in the country is still roughly the same.

Had the government simply given each impoverished person a million dollars, the costs would have been far less. Leave it to the government and Democrats to create money-sucking agencies like this one that simply have no effect in the long run.

  1. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

This organization is a think tank for foreign policy and international affairs studies. But like the National Endowment for the Humanities, above, it’s highly redundant as its function is already carried out very capably by many prestigious academic institutions.


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