Don't destroy an agency for doing its job

If there is one thing we Americans like to do, it’s to rant about the government being broken and suggest ways to fix it. We want agencies that do what they were designed to do.

Surprisingly, we have some of those—some agencies that work as planned. Take the EPA, please.

That’s just an old joke, but there are quite a few of us who want to dismantle this particular agency for…working. Maybe it works too well, maybe it is too effective. You see, it isn’t called the Job Protection Agency or the Stock Price Agency. The clue is right there in its name: Environmental Protection Agency. Their job is to protect the environment. It was created to be a voice for owls and moths and water and trees.

We have another agency called the Commerce Department. This organization's main purpose is to create jobs, promote economic growth, encourage sustainable development and improve standards of living for all Americans.

The Commerce Department isn’t here to save bald eagles or to stop water pollution. It is here to be a voice for business and jobs. So is the SBA, which speaks for 99.7 percent of all businesses in America. Blaming the EPA for a poor economy or a low stock price is like blaming the Small Business Administration (SBA) for the Space Shuttle disaster. Frankly, that isn’t their department.

NASA does space, USDA does food, EPA does pollution, and the SBA does business. They sometime collide, like when the FAA tells NASA not to launch rockets over Orlando—but that is no reason for NASA to destroy the FAA. Both agencies are just doing their jobs, ma’am. They look for solutions to mutually opposing mandates.

In my personal life, I don’t condone tearing someone else down to make myself look better. You probably don’t, either. Doing that doesn’t make me any better in reality, I only look better by comparison.

Maybe instead of destroying a part of government that works, we can build up the ones that don’t. I’m talking about the pro-business organizations here not working. Let’s hold the EPA up as an example of an effective government bureaucracy—and try to make the SBA and Commerce Department just as beneficial to their respective constituents.

Our whole American political system is based on checks and balances. The president, Congress and the Supreme Court have this three-way tug-of-war going which works pretty well. It’s hard for any one of them to gain the upper hand, and we end up with a nice, slow progression toward what we hope is a better future for everyone.

That’s what should be happening here, too. The EPA is strong and effective, so the answer for many people seems to be, “Let’s destroy it.” Based on his pick to lead the EPA, this seems to be Trump’s idea of a solution, too: This works, so let’s break it.

The EPA (again, that stands for Environmental Protection Agency) works hard to protect the environment. They may need someone to pull on the other end of the rope if business is hurt by their actions, but don’t blame the EPA for being an agency that works. Don’t destroy it for that. All we need to do is fix the other agencies that are a natural check-and-balance to the effective EPA.

Maybe Trump is on the right track; I guess time will tell. I’m not sure the wife of a guy who made fake wrestling popular would be my first choice to speak for my business interests, but if we’re going to silence the voice of the voiceless, then a weak SBA will sound like a freight train. Business interests won’t necessarily advance, but compared with the EPA being dragged down, it will sure look like progress.