Fighting government waste, fraud and abuse has been a mantra for many candidates — Democrat and Republican — running for office. In fact, former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had some success in rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. But now that it has become a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s administration, his detractors are complaining that proposed cuts are draconian and disrupting government agencies.

I’m sorry, but if my money is being misspent by the government something needs to be done. Yes, there is going to be some disruption and that’s to be expected.

Sometimes I think that our representatives, in an effort to be helpful, propose programs that could be duplicative of other programs. In fact, I got an email the other day from Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., introducing a program called the Disaster Relief for Farm Workers Act. Sounds like a great idea, right? Farm workers like other workers whose jobs have been disrupted by disaster need assistance. But we already provide money to states hit by disasters. Shouldn’t it be up to the state government to decide who the money should go to, and could they decide to use some of the federal funds to help farm workers in their state?

According to the press release, “The Disaster Relief for Farm Workers Act would address this problem by providing direct relief funding for farm workers. Specifically, this bill would:

• Make grants available to eligible farm worker organizations to provide emergency relief to farm workers affected by a disaster.
• Ensure the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) develops and executes a promotional plan prior to and throughout the distribution of the relief grants to increase awareness of the assistance available.
• Require USDA to work with eligible farm worker organizations.
• Provide definitions for a covered disaster, eligible farm worker organization, and migrant or seasonal farm worker.
• Amend Section 2281 of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 to allow for emergency assistance for farm workers.”

I would think that it would be easier for states to identify these workers, contact farm worker organizations — who could help identify farm workers’ needs — and provide these payments.

I’m sure Sen. Padilla has good reason to propose this program and his heart is in the right place, but programs like this should be heavily scrutinized.

I could be all wrong about this and I’m sure you will let me know if my thinking is wrong. But I’m just thinking aloud here.

Then there are all the job cuts. As a member of the press, I can tell you that not many career fields have seen job cuts like the press has seen. Since the invention of the internet our industry — especially the print part of the industry — has been decimated. That has prompted many who work in our industry to be more nimble and to expand our chores beyond our job descriptions.

I have no doubt many employers have had to cut jobs because of changes brought about by the internet and other technological advances. The government should be no different. And you can be that private companies don’t hire anyone unless they have done the math and know have they means to do so.

I have to admit I was kind of amused by the fuss caused by government workers when they had to send in a list of five things that they did every week. I don’t know about you but that is a common practice in the private sector. In fact, here at The Fence Post everyone — from editorial to sales reps — has to fill out a form on Monday morning where we let management know what we are up to and every month editors send an email detailing magazine content. This lets our employers know that we are doing our jobs, which is especially important as most of us do not work in an office.

I expect no less of the people who are being paid using my hard-earned tax money.