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Comment by diogenescynic | Hacker News Reader

The EPA and other regulators have been hamstrung by republicans since their inception and then when they don't do everything perfectly republicans love to show how the EPA, SEC or whoever aren't doing their job. Republicans sabotage these regulators and don't provide adequate funding. It's sabotage. "The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." - P. J. O'Rourke

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FYI, the EPA is comprised of 15000 employees, and its annual budet is $8.14B. That's $543K per head. A lot of money for sitting on their hands and making excuses that they're "hamstrung".

It's all about how you want to manipulate the stats--$8billion for 320,000,000 Americans is $25/person. Don't you think $8billion is a relatively small budget/price to pay for protecting human health and regulating environment protections in a $16.7 trillion economy with 3.797 million square miles of territory? I sure do.

That is a poor metric. The EPA funds many pollution prevention and mitigation programs that far exceed the cost of staffing.

Nonetheless, people in Flint didn't have drinkable water for years. If the agency is so toothless with a highly politicized case like this, you can only imagine how toothless it is when it comes to the less publicized cases. So don't tell me how awesome the EPA currently is. Maybe it could, in fact, benefit from a swift kick in the ass.

They can't do anything with the funding they have, so maybe they'll do better with less funding? That's a non-sequitur.

Maybe it's not about funding at all?

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