The White House has a "Rural Council"?? Who knew?

About the Council

To address challenges in Rural America, build on the Administration’s rural economic strategy, and improve the implementation of that strategy, the President signed an Executive Order [June 9, 2011] establishing the White House Rural Council.

The Council will coordinate the Administration’s efforts in rural America by performing three core functions. It will:

1. Streamline and improve the effectiveness of Federal programs serving rural America. Through smarter government we can do even more to improve outcomes and lower costs for the American taxpayer.
2. Engage stakeholders, including farmers, ranchers, and local citizens, on issues and solutions in rural communities. The Rural Council will create and coordinate opportunities for direct dialogue between the Administration and Rural America.
3. Promote and coordinate private-sector partnerships. The Rural Council will find new ways for the government to partner with private organizations in solving shared problems, and develop new, innovative models of partnership.

 

So guess who's on this "Rural" Council? If you guessed a bunch of bitter clingers, you couldn't be more wrong.

Membership. (a) The Secretary of Agriculture shall serve as the Chair of the Council, which shall also include the heads of the following executive branch departments, agencies, and offices:
     
           (1) the Department of the Treasury;
        
           (2) the Department of Defense;
        
           (3) the Department of Justice;
        
           (4) the Department of the Interior;
        
           (5) the Department of Commerce;
        
           (6) the Department of Labor;
        
           (7) the Department of Health and Human Services;
        
           (8) the Department of Housing and Urban Development;
        
           (9) the Department of Transportation;
        
           (10) the Department of Energy;
        
           (11) the Department of Education;
        
           (12) the Department of Veterans Affairs;
        
           (13) the Department of Homeland Security;
        
           (14) the Environmental Protection Agency;
        
           (15) the Federal Communications Commission;
        
           (16) the Office of Management and Budget;
        
           (17) the Office of Science and Technology Policy;
        
           (18) the Office of National Drug Control Policy;
        
           (19) the Council of Economic Advisers;
        
           (20) the Domestic Policy Council;
        
           (21) the National Economic Council;
        
           (22) the Small Business Administration;
        
           (23) the Council on Environmental Quality;
        
           (24) the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs (a/k/a Valerie Jarrett)

 

(25) the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs; and such other executive branch departments, agencies, and offices as the President or the Secretary of Agriculture may, from time to time, designate.

 

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

Let's admit it: When it comes to devising busywork, boondoggles, and bureaucratic balderdash, the Dims have no peers. What they do have is a perverse genius for inventing mindless schemes for wasting the public's money. These schemes have nothing to do with honest work; they involve assigning people to monitor the efforts of other people who are paid to monitor the efforts of still other people, in an endless regress back to the Big Bang. For capers like the Rural Council, we are allowing our grandkids to become serfs of the Chinese. There really is, it appears, such a thing as a Death Wish: -- and it has our national government in its thrall.

[Tom Glennon]

OK, I looked at the makeup of the members of the new Rural Council. It seems that they all have met the same criteria. They can all say "I have never met a farmer, or been on a ranch, but I did buy some sweet corn at a roadside stand once".