President Trump - I never thought I would use those two words together - is making progress in naming his Cabinet. It does indeed matter who administers the programs of the sprawling federal bureaucracy, and it is normal that the matter receives much attention.
However, as with everything else with the Trump saga, this process has not been normal. Let's review one weird feature of the process, namely several picks who have no acquaintance with the subject matter with which their department deals - bad enough - but have openly opposed the missions of the departments they are to lead.
Trump's nominee for Secretary of Labor is a strong proponent of use of robots in the workplace. That may be good for profits. But it will do nothing to increase manufacturing and coal mining jobs on which Trump based so much of his campaign.
His nominee for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has spent much of his professional career fighting that agency. That's consistent with Trump's promise to get rid of regulations. But the mission of the EPA is to protect the environment, human health and safety.
His nominee for Secretary of Education has absolutely no experience with public education; she and her family never attended public schools nor have been employed in a public school system. She openly advocates privatization of education, under the guise of "choice," of course.
His nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development that is responsible for administering federal housing programs for low income people openly opposes the role of government for this purpose.
His nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services has long been a vigorous opponent of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Neither he nor his Republican allies, though they have had over six years to do so, have come up with nothing to replace it. They feed us idle babble, tired shibboleths and bromides about "freedom, patient-centered, market-based" solutions along with health savings accounts. It would be helpful if our negligent, supposedly "liberal media" would press these people on such non-solutions. But that's another story.
His nominee for Attorney General obviously knows something about law. And under questioning by Democrats, he asserts that he will carry out the law of the land regarding voting rights. However, based on his past, that is questionable. If he drags his feet on insuring voting rights, he is in tune with the president and the Senate Republicans that surely will confirm him.
All this is - it's tough to think of an appropriate adjective as "unprecedented" is an understatement - just plain bizarre. Perhaps the most unlikely nomination, though consistent with Trump's unpredictability, is his selection for Secretary of Energy, former Texas Governor Rick Perry. If it were not so serious, it would be comical. Without a doubt, it's farce.
In what seems an eternity ago, like our own Gov. Scott Walker, Perry saw himself as presidential timber. Trump easily got rid of him, accusing Perry of wearing glasses in a fruitless effort to "appear intelligent."
So, good bye, Perry, temporarily, anyway. But heck, that's nothing. In a still earlier era when Perry was seeking the GOP presidential nomination, in a proposal to reduce the size of government he proposed eliminating three Cabinet departments: Commerce, Education, and ... try as he might, he could not think of the third department he so desperately wanted to eliminate.
We ordinary folk can easily forgive a guy under pressure for having a brief mental lapse; it's happened to all of us. But the out-of-touch mainstream media nitwits, more concerned with trivia and minutiae than with substantive issues, never let him forget it and made a big deal out of it.
Perry drifted out of sight, but not for long. He would surface again, under unlikely circumstances. Enter Trump and his Cabinet nominations. His nominee for Secretary of the third department that Perry wanted to eliminate, the Department of Energy, is none other than Perry himself. So the future Secretary of Energy is the man who forgot that this was the department he wanted to eliminate. A Hollywood script writer would surely reject this as too far out of it.
Sure, Trump got elected while promising to do things differently, in his own - please forgive the understatement - "unprecedented" way. Trump is abiding by the old saw, "ya gotta dance with who brung you." But let's not confuse "unprecedented" with incompetence and malfeasance.
In any organization, corporate, academic, or government, heads of departments need to be in tune with those who appoint them. They are expected to advocate for their department while being consistent with the larger organization's mission.
Cabinet departments of the federal government are huge, and the many programs of each department are broad and far reaching. No single Cabinet Secretary can be expected to be totally knowledgeable in every subject of every program administered by that department. But the public expects cabinet heads to have had some acquaintance with the subject matter of their department and to believe in their department's mission, whether it's protecting the environment, advocating for labor, public education, or equal justice under the law.
As former governor of Texas, Perry surely is acquainted with oil and gas interests. But he was shocked upon discovering that the Energy Department's major responsibilities include presiding over the nation's nuclear stockpile, radioactive waste disposal, the national laboratories that conduct major energy-related research, and much else.
This is not to suggest that Perry is unqualified for the post, notwithstanding that the outgoing Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, once directed MIT's linear accelerator, and his predecessor, Steven Chu, was a Nobel Prize winner.
Perry now confesses that he erred in recommending elimination of the Department of Energy.
But given his total naivety, it gives one cause to wonder about the rest of Trump's bizarre Cabinet picks.
- John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
However, as with everything else with the Trump saga, this process has not been normal. Let's review one weird feature of the process, namely several picks who have no acquaintance with the subject matter with which their department deals - bad enough - but have openly opposed the missions of the departments they are to lead.
Trump's nominee for Secretary of Labor is a strong proponent of use of robots in the workplace. That may be good for profits. But it will do nothing to increase manufacturing and coal mining jobs on which Trump based so much of his campaign.
His nominee for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has spent much of his professional career fighting that agency. That's consistent with Trump's promise to get rid of regulations. But the mission of the EPA is to protect the environment, human health and safety.
His nominee for Secretary of Education has absolutely no experience with public education; she and her family never attended public schools nor have been employed in a public school system. She openly advocates privatization of education, under the guise of "choice," of course.
His nominee for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development that is responsible for administering federal housing programs for low income people openly opposes the role of government for this purpose.
His nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services has long been a vigorous opponent of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Neither he nor his Republican allies, though they have had over six years to do so, have come up with nothing to replace it. They feed us idle babble, tired shibboleths and bromides about "freedom, patient-centered, market-based" solutions along with health savings accounts. It would be helpful if our negligent, supposedly "liberal media" would press these people on such non-solutions. But that's another story.
His nominee for Attorney General obviously knows something about law. And under questioning by Democrats, he asserts that he will carry out the law of the land regarding voting rights. However, based on his past, that is questionable. If he drags his feet on insuring voting rights, he is in tune with the president and the Senate Republicans that surely will confirm him.
All this is - it's tough to think of an appropriate adjective as "unprecedented" is an understatement - just plain bizarre. Perhaps the most unlikely nomination, though consistent with Trump's unpredictability, is his selection for Secretary of Energy, former Texas Governor Rick Perry. If it were not so serious, it would be comical. Without a doubt, it's farce.
In what seems an eternity ago, like our own Gov. Scott Walker, Perry saw himself as presidential timber. Trump easily got rid of him, accusing Perry of wearing glasses in a fruitless effort to "appear intelligent."
So, good bye, Perry, temporarily, anyway. But heck, that's nothing. In a still earlier era when Perry was seeking the GOP presidential nomination, in a proposal to reduce the size of government he proposed eliminating three Cabinet departments: Commerce, Education, and ... try as he might, he could not think of the third department he so desperately wanted to eliminate.
We ordinary folk can easily forgive a guy under pressure for having a brief mental lapse; it's happened to all of us. But the out-of-touch mainstream media nitwits, more concerned with trivia and minutiae than with substantive issues, never let him forget it and made a big deal out of it.
Perry drifted out of sight, but not for long. He would surface again, under unlikely circumstances. Enter Trump and his Cabinet nominations. His nominee for Secretary of the third department that Perry wanted to eliminate, the Department of Energy, is none other than Perry himself. So the future Secretary of Energy is the man who forgot that this was the department he wanted to eliminate. A Hollywood script writer would surely reject this as too far out of it.
Sure, Trump got elected while promising to do things differently, in his own - please forgive the understatement - "unprecedented" way. Trump is abiding by the old saw, "ya gotta dance with who brung you." But let's not confuse "unprecedented" with incompetence and malfeasance.
In any organization, corporate, academic, or government, heads of departments need to be in tune with those who appoint them. They are expected to advocate for their department while being consistent with the larger organization's mission.
Cabinet departments of the federal government are huge, and the many programs of each department are broad and far reaching. No single Cabinet Secretary can be expected to be totally knowledgeable in every subject of every program administered by that department. But the public expects cabinet heads to have had some acquaintance with the subject matter of their department and to believe in their department's mission, whether it's protecting the environment, advocating for labor, public education, or equal justice under the law.
As former governor of Texas, Perry surely is acquainted with oil and gas interests. But he was shocked upon discovering that the Energy Department's major responsibilities include presiding over the nation's nuclear stockpile, radioactive waste disposal, the national laboratories that conduct major energy-related research, and much else.
This is not to suggest that Perry is unqualified for the post, notwithstanding that the outgoing Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, once directed MIT's linear accelerator, and his predecessor, Steven Chu, was a Nobel Prize winner.
Perry now confesses that he erred in recommending elimination of the Department of Energy.
But given his total naivety, it gives one cause to wonder about the rest of Trump's bizarre Cabinet picks.
- John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
