The people at the top of all of the federal agencies are appointed by the President (at least by proxy). The most harmful thing that has happened is that people who actually have expertise have been replaced by political hacks. A good example is Michael Brown, former head of FEMA - he had absolutely no experience in emergency management, and it showed. If you look at other major appointees, there's a disturbing pattern of people at the heads of agencies that had previously spent their careers fighting those agencies. I can't think of any examples in particular, but you might find that the head of the EPA had formerly been a lobbyist for chemical companies fighting for looser environmental restrictions. Etc. And this sort of thing is pervasive throughout the federal government. There's a ripple effect to it as well - "careers", who aren't appointed and are subject matter experts, are given less and less input, basically being shut out.
So the point is, all decisions are made in terms of neoconservative politics rather than good policy.
Re: the FDA in particular, if you look at the article, it cites statistics about the number of inspections that are done by the FDA being significantly slashed, etc.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-12-13 08:17 pm (UTC)So the point is, all decisions are made in terms of neoconservative politics rather than good policy.
Re: the FDA in particular, if you look at the article, it cites statistics about the number of inspections that are done by the FDA being significantly slashed, etc.