New/old rw e-mail going around about "How the Guvmint Works"

and then goes on to ask just exactly is the Energy Department for? Why are we paying for this big waste instituted by wasteful Jimmy Carter blah, blah, blah. This is the second one I've received and responded with the google article(s) on all of the things the ED is responsible for. Is this a new meme? Is slamming Carter some more the new attack? Just wondering if anyone else has received these...

reply and ask them if they are now in favor of unilateral nuclear disarmament, since the Department of Energy handles the nuclear weapons program for the US...wait, I guess the email doesn't mention that, does it?

to post it.

Here it is:

Does anybody remember the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY....During the Carter Administration?

Anybody?

Anything?

No?

Didn't think so!

Bottom line. We've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency ... the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember!

Ready?? It was very simple ... and, at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977. TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND, NOW, ITS 2009 -- 32 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS "NECESSARY" DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND, LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WAS I THINKING?"

Ah, yes -- good ole bureaucracy.

And, NOW, we are turning the banking system, HEALTH CARE, maybe the insurance industry and the auto industry over to the same Government?