FLAIT

This is an e-mail I sent to Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign, with some slight changes. In 2011 I sent her this e-mail when she was running for the Senate.

I'm supporting Sen. Warren for President and had a few ideas for her campaign.

Actually, my support for her wavered a bit because I didn't think she would go far enough on guns - don't bother placating the gun nuts, they're not voting for her regardless of what she says, so she may as well call for strong national gun control.

Anyway, whoever becomes president in 2021 is going to have to spend a lot of time rebuilding government departments, agencies and institutions. Not only because of what the current administration has done, but because of the systematic deterioration that has taken place over the last 40 years. Regulations have been lacking, weakened and have gone unenforced. Agencies have become rubber stamps for the industries they're supposed to be monitoring and regulating. And tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue has been lost from the treasury because the IRS doesn't have the resources or manpower to go after tax cheats.

All this decay of government wasn't an accident. It's been a concerted effort, spanning decades, by the Republican Party to tear government down. So government needs to be rebuilt.

I know it would be taboo to run on "big government," but that's only because Republicans have turned them into dirty words. And Democrats typically run away from it (like they do guns). But not anymore. So I would like to see Sen. Warren talk about rebuilding our government departments, agencies and institutions. And don't just leave it at that for the GOP to attack as "big government." Explain the deteriorating state of our government departments, agencies and institutions and why rebuilding them is important.

But there are two issues that are too big to leave to the departments alone. And one of them is climate change.

I think there needs to be someone above the EPA (and the other government departments that deal with the environment) at the cabinet level to address climate change specifically. Call it the "Department of Climate Change." It would also oversee and implement strategic plans for green technology, and the rebuilding of our city's decrepit mass transit systems all over the country.

The EPA and the Departments of Transportation and Energy can only do so much. Besides, the environment, transportation and energy are all linked to climate change. So they should be connected one way or another. Hence the need for a new cabinet position with a wide ranging objective and authority. Gov. Inslee would be perfect for it.

The other issue is guns. Gun violence is out of control, so we need an entire new way to deal with it, above and beyond of what the ATF does. And that requires a new cabinet level position as well - the "Department of Firearms Law Enforcement." Maybe former NYC Mayor Bloomberg would be perfect for that. (Whoever it is, a prerequisite is that he or she has to hate guns as much as I do.)

Calling for these two new cabinet positions would be very popular. And it would put "President" Trump and the Republicans on the defensive because they'd not only oppose them, but ridicule them.

I had another idea that I thought about for a long time. It's a bit wild, but here it goes. We need to remove the partisanship from the government departments. They need to do their job regardless of who the president is. So with the exception of the obvious ones like Defense, Treasury, State, Attorney General, and maybe HHS, remove the other departments from the cabinet, even Homeland Security. Make them independent agencies like the FDA, NASA and the Federal Reserve. Also, mandate that the secretary/administrator of these departments - appointed by the president every, say, six years and confirmed by the Senate - must be someone who's been working there for say 10 years. So no more nominating the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee Agriculture Secretary, and no longer tapping a crony to run the EPA. (So it would be possible for a janitor at one of these department to one day be its secretary/administrator.)

I said it was a bit wild. But I think the we should remove the partisanship from our departments and also ensure that the secretaries/administrators running them understand what the department does and how it operates.

And if you say you will implement this as president, it will become a political issue this year and every four years (assuming you win) because Republicans will oppose it because they need to fill the cabinet with their anti-regulation cronies.

I think this country desperately needs a Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as president. And I think Sen. Warren is the only candidate who can do what they did. That's why I wanted to send this to her and her campaign. I hope it gets at least some attention before it's automatically deleted, assuming it was even read.

Thank you.