THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412090039
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
The Agriculture Department announced a long-anticipated restructuring this week. The plan would close or consolidate 1,274 field offices, including 57 of 111 in Virginia. By 1999, $3.6 billion would be saved, but 11,000 jobs will be lost.
That's the dual-edged sword of reinventing government in action. The plan is touted as streamlining. Many local storefronts will give way to fewer centralized service centers. Farmers who once had to visit several offices will now be able to do one-stop shopping.
There are always trade-offs, however. In this case, geography will decide whether customers are hurt or happy. Those near a one-stop center will have their lives simplified. Those at a distance will be inconvenienced.
Nevertheless, the downsizing is a useful step in an inevitable direction. The past two elections have shown that voters want less government and lower taxes. To get their wish, they must accept fewer government services, the pruning of bureaucracy and elimination of programs that are outmoded or serve a negligible constituency. Good things can happen if the two parties enter a competition to streamline government, so long as the result isn't mindless slashing.
The Agriculture Department was a fine target ripe for cutting. Its sprawling bureaucracy has defied reformers for years. While farms have decreased to a mere fraction of their former number, USDA employment has swelled to 110,000 in 42 agencies and 3,700 offices.
New programs have proliferated while old ones that have outlived their usefulness have lingered. Many of the field offices slated for closing were once in rural areas but now occupy suburbs where farming is only a memory, yet institutional inertia kept them open. A similar consolidation has been proposed for the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of USDA.
Further reductions could be made by re-examining crop subsidy programs. Most from the Depression no longer make sense. Rep. Dick Armey, the incoming House majority leader, once mocked them as ``Moscow on the Mississippi.'' Now that his party is in a position to take action, let's hope Armey will follow through with some further weeding at the Agriculture Department.
KEYWORDS: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
by CNB