Griffin Johnston, 4th period, government shutdown has exposed some government agencies as being supposedly not needed

Barnini Chakraborty, writing for Fox News, reports on the massive amount of federal workers that have been furloughed due to the government shutdown. The federal government is the United States’ largest employer, and according to the article, 800,000 people holding federal jobs were furloughed this past week. However, this large amount of people absent from their jobs in various federal agencies exposes another problem. There are various government agencies that have workers still working in them, despite the shutdown, due to their jobs being essential to the well fare and safety of the government and its people. However, there are many government agencies that have furloughed their entire work force. Many of these agencies, some of which include the U.S. Commisions of Fine Arts and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness are obscure agencies in the government. If all of the workers for these agencies can be furloughed and the government is still able to run, the question must be asked: Why are these various agencies needed? If they are not needed, then why is the government putting large amounts of money into these agencies to run them?

            Many times, a certain agency or department exists in the government that possess a time stamp. This means that it was created during a time period in our nation’s history where it might have been logical, helpful, or needed to have this agency in place at that specific time, but now it is not that important. Also, one must take into account the fact that these agencies, trivial or not, provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of people. If more people are getting paid, then more people can contribute to the economy by spending more.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/07/silver-lining-federal-slimdown-exposes-government-waste/