And you are exactly on the money with that response.  Ever since Reagan started with the slogan "the gov't is the problem", unthinking people have been lining up to undo the govt.  The Repubs have consistently cut funds from agencies, which then could not function as necessary and then would use that to point out that the agencies were not doing their job.  What annoys me is that there was s little push-back from the Democrats on this and relatively little in the press.  This, despite all of the insistence that the press is unfairly liberal.