Howdy All,
If I don't have to slow down for rabbits, coyotes, bobcats and El Chupacabra I can make it to work in one minute.

__________________
Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

The short answer is, "Iraq and Afghanistan".

The fed budget, despite perpetual rumors to the contrary, is limited. Domestic agencies like my own (Interior Dept) are what's called discretionary'. About 1/2 of the fed budget is discretionary including DoD--the 'enforcers'. At this juncture, and with my full support, DoD gets whatever piece of the pie they need to do what they do. Next on the food chain is Mike's domain, DHS, (which I also fully support).

The rest of discretionary spending is everything else, including my agency. Agencies that have vociferous constituencies are better able to survive raids on their wish-list than agencies with no constituency. Thus, DoT gets support (travelers and Coast Guard), etc. In that environment, a non-health related agency that doesn't affect national security is an agency which is likely to suffer the depredations of Congressional Budget Office and Office of Mgmt and Budget. That would be us.

In the past 5 years, my agency has not seen a complete COLA--meaning we must make shortfalls (diff between flat op expenses and COLA) from operating expenses.

And here is where we sound incredibly stupid.

We do not cut experienced high-value (expensive) scientists. We cut technical staff and contractors so that we can maintain the capacity for basic research and expand capacity as needed through senior scientist funding. What happens at the asymptote of the budget process is this: We maintain a highly technically proficient staff but have no operating budget to accomplish anything with that research staff!

Fortunately, we have not (yet!!) reached that point. But over that most recent FY my cost center has cut contractors from a staff of 100 to 65. I believe (and have budgeted my office for) an additional contract RIF such that we will have about 2/3 of our present staff. This projection is about 1/4 of optimal. I believe if we go beyond that threshold we will become mission ineffective--we will be paid to sit at our desks.

As a taxpayer, I want gov to do one thing better than any other person, group or nation: protect ourselves. Secondly, I want our nation to be able to project power as needed anywhere without any doubt as to the outcome. These two goals are met by DoD and DHS. It is the will of the electorate to shift resources to those departments. The result is that other departments pay the price.

If you would prefer some other allocation of your tax dollars, the most effective means you have of expressing your opinion and having it considered is to write a letter to your Congressional representative. Be brief, explicit, and honest. Having been on the receiving end of congressional enquires, I assure you with complete candor and honesty, your representative pays close attention to hand-written, carefully considered (by the writer) letters. An email is as valuable as a polling point--they are interested but not impressed. But a well written hand-written letter indicates that the writer is a thinker and a communicator--somebody likely to influence lots of people.

If you feel strongly about an issue, write a letter in your own hand and make it clear, concise, and succinct.

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