Many of us grew up with visions of Uncle Sam. The stalwart, affable symbol of our federal government.
In the wake of World War II, confidence and approval of the federal government soared -- government agencies popped up and expanded with extremely favorable environment. It's easy to forget that Medicare, for example, has only been around since 1966 and the Department of Education since 1980.
Overtime we've grown increasingly skeptical, generally, with the role of many of the federal government's agencies and functions - with good reason. Consider, for example, that for government aid programs we average an efficiency rating of only around 18 percent compared to an 80 percent rating for the average charity for example.
According to the Federal Register there are currently 430 agencies.
How many do you think the average elected official can name? Over the years I've even floated the notion that we can keep any agencies that any member of Congress can name but we should eliminate any that at least one of the 535 Congressional representatives can't name. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? Anyway, out of the 430 federal agencies here are the ones that we currently rank as being good or excellent according to Gallup's latest research.
Postal Service: 74 percent
CDC: 66 percent
Secret Service: 63 percent
Homeland Security: 59 percent
FBI: 58 percent
CIA: 57 percent
NASA: 56 percent
FEMA: 55 percent
That's 8 out of 430 if you're keeping score.
So, a majority of us approve of only 1.9 percent of federal government agencies that're paid for by us and are supposed to be working for us. Seems like something's a little out whack with government accountability doesn't it?