Useless Councils

July 17, 2001

On Wednesday, January 10, I was surprised to read in the Washington Times newspaper that on the eve of his retirement as Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman established seven advisory councils to provide "ongoing advice" to USDA employees who are members of protected classes. I thought to myself, "What does all this mean? If these councils were so important, why didn't Secretary Glickman appoint them when he was Secretary? Unless he simply felt that Secretary Veneman needed them worse than he did."

Get this. Here is the list of councils:

- Gay & Lesbian Employee Advisory Council

- Women Employee Advisory Council

- African-American Employee Advisory Council

- Asian-American & Pacific Islander Employee Advisory Council

- Hispanic Advisory Council

- Native American Employee Advisory Council

- Secretary's Advisory Committee on Employees with Disabilities

Monthly meetings required. All travel and lodging expenses paid.

Of course that means paid by our tax money. What a waste! I heard not a word about this until this week another article in the Washington Times headlined: "USDA seeks 'gay, lesbian' specialist.: Post pays $97,108 per year. That's just one of the seven jobs. When added up it comes to nearly $700,000 in salaries.

I guess these seven specialists will head up the seven councils. I can't think of a bigger waste of manpower and resources. I might see this kind of pandering in a Gore Administration, but in a Bush Administration? That's not the way to be the "big tent" party. It's fine to hire all of these diverse people. I'm all for that. But give them a real job. Agriculture needs good people to do real work. This is all politics.