The American Spectator

is apparently a bit deeper than it might seem. br> — Thomas Paulick /p> p> Do we really need a gushy article about the head bureaucrat of a massive agency that directs local and state labor issues, pension plans, health and welfare funds, etc One need only review the agency website to get a quick realization of how out of control, overarching and incomprehensibly Kafka-esque federal agencies have become. The Department of Labor oversees employer-based health insurance, and yet patients caught in the outright defiance of insurance companies that fail to adhere to Department of Labor regulations have no recourse. Regulations issued by the Department of Labor regarding insurance response to and payment of claims is routinely ignored, and there are no penalties. This agency is yet another example of an overgrown bureaucracy that Republicans have no desire to address or reduce. Rather than self-congratulatory adulation, the heads of these bureaucracies should be talking to the American people victimized by the government agencies that, by their nature, have little interest in the individual. It appears the writer of this article did not address any of the major issues Republicans formerly would have raised: federalizing issues and laws that should be in the purview of local government, depriving individuals of their rights to sue in state courts and to instead be forced into cumbersome federal remedies and courts, and the outright defiance of health and welfare entities to obey the rules, even as their executives get hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options. br> — Caroline Miranda , Attorney at Law br> North Hollywood, California /p> p> W. James Antle III replies: br> So which way does Ms. Miranda want to argue this — is the Department of Labor a massive, imperious bureaucracy or does it regulate too little? I make perfectly clear that the Labor Department is even now too big. If I had my way, it would not exist at all. But if the Labor Department isn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future, it would be better to have it well run, with restraint in its annual budget growth while still effectively addressing many of the concerns it is supposed to deal with. Under the current labor secretary it has, and at a time when swing voters question conservatives’ ability to govern this fact is well worth pointing out.