Yesterday, Senator Inhofe (R., Okla.) stood with Freedom Action and the American Conservative Union to announce that he is putting a hold on the nomination of John Bryson, co-founder of the environmental special interest Natural Resources Defense Council, to be the next secretary of commerce. This is a good thing. As my colleague William Yeatman explains, it should be as shocking as if the president had announced that the CEO of ExxonMobil would be the next head of the EPA.
It occurs to me that the good senator and his colleagues should go further. The Commerce Department is an icon of big government, ever since the days of Herbert Hoover — just read the grandiose inscription on the Commerce Department building. That’s why I suggest in my new book Stealing You Blind that it should be one of the first things to go in my plan to get government off the backs of the American people. It has a couple of valid constitutional functions in the shape of the Census Bureau and the Patent Office, but they could become independent executive agencies without much fuss, and its international trade functions can go to the Treasury Department. Virtually everything else the department does redistributes our money in subsidy programs of little effectiveness.
In the end, the department is small fry when it comes to spending, with an annual budget of around $12 billion, but that’s what makes it perfect for sacrifice in the current debt negotiations. America rarely sees individual programs shut down, much less entire government departments, but if Congress were to demand and the president were to agree that the Commerce Department should go, then it would send a message to bureaucrats everywhere and to the American people at large that something had changed. Government would no longer be guaranteed to grow forever; it could retreat too.
Speaker Boehner should demand the Commerce Department’s shutdown as part of a deficit ceiling deal. Without a move this radical, Americans cannot know that Washington is serious that things have changed.
I would add the dept of Education which educates no one and the Dept of Energy which doesn't provide any energy. This would just be a start however.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI understand the sentiment, but such a demand will come off as flaky and unserious in the middle of tense negotiations about the national debt.
I think, if the budget is properly managed and things are natually prioritized, the Commerce Department will find few advocates.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"such a demand will come off as flaky"
Ya think? I'd like to see the reaction when we completely shut down NOAA.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, it's not like more useful components couldn't be rolled into Interior or whatever.
I'm curious, just what issues are you "right leaning" on, since you've only posted about how wrong the Right is on this issue or that issue?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVastly simplified taxes, lower tax rates, elimination of many functions of Energy, Education, Agriculture and more, legalization of marijuana, cocaine and prostitution, not fighting multiple wars on the cheap. I also favor raising revenues since we have an utterly massive deficit and the lowest revenues in half a century.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"lower tax rates" and "I also favor raising revenues.." Interesting - how do you reconcile those two things? Our revenues are low because economic activity is low, and unemployment is high. As Sen. Rubio said, we don't need higher taxes, we need more taxpayers. When people get back to work, revenues will rise.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"such a demand will come off as flaky and unserious"
To whom? I think it's magnificent.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAllow me to clarify.
Asking for this to be added AT THIS POINT of the negotiations would come off as flaky.
If it was part of the starting package, I'd be on board with pressing it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSure Ian. Who needs NOAA or the weather service? I mean Big Oil who contributes to your salary does a bang up job keeping our country clean and safe.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNOAA and the NWS can easily be stood up on their own or folded into another Dept...perhaps the Dept of Interior.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRead Mr. Murray’s words a little more carefully. He says the “couple of valid constitutional functions in the shape of the Census Bureau and the Patent Office … could become independent executive agencies …, and its international trade functions can go to the Treasury Department.” As for the rest, he calls for their “shutdown.” Therefore, he does not favor their being stood up on their own or folded into another department.
All in all, flaky and unserious.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo NOAA and the weather service ARE constitutional functions? I think not. Everyday the president changes what he wants as part of these negotiations so why not add this kind of things to the table?
This the problem I always have with the GOP in their negotiating strategies. They don't understand how these things work and they always start a negotiation with what they would settle for in the worst case scenario. They end up getting rolled and the country continues careening toward destruction.
They should start out their negotiations with: "We hold the purse strings and so we've decided to defund Energy, Education, Commerce, the EPA, the NEA, HUD, and all green energy subsidies. We'll raise the debt ceiling by $500 Billion in return for the elimination of these wasteful programs."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWho needs NOAA and the weather service? Nobody. All their functions are either being handled already by the private sector or could be.
I love the way that you try and imply that the author's opinions are bought and paid for.
As for your complaint that big oil is polluting. You really should learn a little bit of history. Try reading up on how it was govt that prevented private individuals from suing whenever a company polluted their land or water.
Not that a discussion of pollution has any relevance to this discussion.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abusewell speaking of NOAA, who would we get to mis-estimate the number of hurricanes every year and to not provide adequate tornado warning or generate the multi-cultural list of storm names?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA professor at Colorado State University does hurricane forecasting (here: External Link
) which, considering the number of hurricanes we get in Colorado, is kind of odd.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLOL...actually, all the economic illiterates who support Obama deserve someone like Bryson. What's next, Michael Moore for Treasury Secretary? Cindy Sheehan for Secretary of State? George Zoros for 'Czar of the World'?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuselol idiot, you neglect to mention that Bryson was for 18 years chairman and ceo of Edison International, a very large electric utility and generator of electricity. He is also a director at Disney and Boeing.
In other words, he is one trillion times the businessman you are.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow, you throw around "trillions" like Obama!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat so many fail to recognize is that the GOP only controls the House. There is no way in he** that Obama and the Senate Democrats were ever going to sign on to any serious reform of entitlement spending.
Conservatives need to 'get real' and understand that the only chance to prevent the Democrat/progressive movement from destroying America via uncontrolled spending is to retain control of the House, gain control of the Senate and elect a conservative president in 2012.
Rest assured that if the debt-ceiling is not raised, Obama, via the Treasury Department, will make sure that people suffer and that the markets and the economy tank; yes, hard to believe that Obama can do any more damage to the economy, but he can and he will if it helps his re-election chances.
Government receipts in August will be $203b, outlays will be $363B. That leaves a shortfall of $160B for the month of August. That's 45% of the total for the month. 'Cutting' 45% of expenditures will be a disaster and that disaster will be the GOP's fault according to the President and the MSM. Do you know how many gov't employees and other workers dependent upon gov't revenues will have to be temporarily laid off? Yes, many of them need to be laid off, but that needs to be done in an orderly manner phased in over a period of 3-5 years. If done all at once, it will not be very pretty site, in fact, it will be a disaster. Sad, but true.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell said.
For Americans who want fiscally conservative government, its time to get serious about the long game.
The fight we need to win is not taking place in July, 2011. Its taking place in November, 2012. The only thing that matters in 7/11 is positioning for the next election. We got a good start in 11/2010 in terms of electing conservatives to the congress, but those conservatives need reinforcements.
Besides, any "wins" we manage in 7/2011 will be immediately set aside if Obama wins in 2012. There is nothing conservatives in congress can accomplish this summer that will survive an electoral defeat next year.
Think ahead, plan ahead.
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