One of the important ways Republicans make government fail when they get elected is to basically ignore the functions assigned to it. One example of this principle is governor Gutshot's treatment of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), where regulatory decisions and research can cost polluters millions of dollars.
Gutshot first tried cronyism, installing an executive from the state's biggest polluter as its head. Eventually the public caught on that maybe having a fog machine from 3M as the head of the MPCA might not have been a terrific idea, and Sheryl Corrigan had to leave the agency for cushier digs working for the nation's worst environmental criminal, Koch Refining.
Once cronyism fails Republicans frequently ignore and defund the regulating agencies to the point they become irrelevant, which is apparently part of the plan at MPCA.
As an example, check out the bottom of this page at the MPCA website that is the homepage for tracking air quality in the state, where it says "This page was last updated May 2003." Does that say the agency is interested in helping Minnesotans get quality air to breathe, or does it say that governor Gutshot doesn't give a damn about the environment, outside the financial gain it provides to his cronies? How many websites that people care about are not updated for almost seven years?
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