Time to re-litigate Unfunded Mandates

Unfunded mandates are orders that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private sector without providing appropriate funding.

In the United States, federal mandates are orders that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private sector.

An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires a state or local government to perform certain actions, with no money provided for fulfilling the requirements. Public individuals or organizations can also be required to fulfill public mandates.

Wikipedia states:

"As of 1992, 172 federal mandates obligated state or local governments to fund programs to some extent.  Beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States federal government has designed laws that require state and local government spending to promote national goals.  During the 1970s, the national government promoted education, mental health, and environmental programs by implementing grant projects at a state and local level; the grants were so common that the federal assistance for these programs made up over a quarter of state and local budgets.The rise in federal mandates led to more mandate regulation. During the Reagan Administration, Executive Order 12291 and the State and Local Cost Estimate Act of 1981 were passed, which implemented a careful examination of the true costs of federal unfunded mandates.  More reform for federal mandates came in 1995 with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), which promoted a Congressional focus on the costs imposed onto intergovernmental entities and the private sector because of federal mandates.  Familiar examples of Federal Unfunded Mandates in the United States include the Americans with Disabilities Act and Medicaid." 

If #BlackLivesMatter and other “in-your-face” protestors were required to fund these protest marches, the market would have some influence on current day events.

Change of Culture Needed at State Department

Acting as the current spokesman for the State Department, former Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby (Ret), disagreed with FBI Director Comey’s characterization that there is a culture of carelessness within the State Department with respect to the handling of classified information.

About 1979, I decided to stick with the operations side of the “ops/intel interface”.  There’s much more money on the INTEL side.  Over the years, I have observed a feeling of superiority among the Special Forces.  They thought they were Special (and above the law).  General David Petraeus was the commander of the Special Forces before he was chosen to lead the surge.

The CIA is under the State Department (not Defense).  Prior to George W. Bush, covert operations were covert.  My views on this are expressed in http://dr2h.blogspot.com/2012/09/covert-operations-should-be-covert.html.

I helped the State Department migrate to “Open Systems” in the 1990s.  Their computer system consisted on Wang computers.  When the US Government had trouble connecting the dots a few years ago, I figured it was because Hillary “pulled the plug” after the Bradley Manning affair.  Our stated objective was to provide all relevant information to the Warfighters in a timely manner.

Kirby announced July 7, 2016, that the State Department would reopen their investigation into Hillary’s emails.

Back “in the day”, Henry Kissinger was photographed reading a Top Secret document and the photo appeared in Time or Newsweek.

Somebody needs to instill some sanity in the handling of classified information at the Department of State and in the Special Operations community.  Nobody should be above the law.