(My CEI colleague) Iain Murray says that part of a budget deal should be to eliminate the Department of Commerce.
It’s not actually the first one I’d go after (I’d get rid of e.g., Education, Labor and Energy first), but I understand the potential appeal. But it does serve many necessary functions that would have to be redistributed elsewhere. For instance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wouldn’t find a comfortable home in the State Department, nor would NOAA or the weather service. Granted, the latter is kind of a mess right now, in terms of not getting needed new satellites up (particularly now that we’re headed into the heart of hurricane season), though it’s not clear whether that’s NOAA’s fault, or NASA’s, which actually manages the development of the satellites. Also, giving over the commercial export list to the State Department could make ITAR even more of a disaster than it already is. It would also raise the issue of finding a new home for the Coast Guard (and the Space Guard, if we ever get one).
There is a reason that Commerce has been around a lot longer than the three agencies I mention above as better targets — if it didn’t exist, we’d probably have to invent it in some form. And unlike education, energy, or labor, we actually do have a Commerce Clause in the Constitution (flawed and overstretched though its interpretation has become).
NIST, NOAA, and the weather service would fit fine with Dept of the Interior.
The Coast Guard has been a component of DHS since 2003.
I’d forgotten that. Well, DHS is another department that should never have happened. And it definitely wouldn’t make sense to put the Space Guard there.
Wouldn’t all these departments employ friends of our ‘representatives?’
It’s a pleasant fantasy, but would it ever happen?
You’re going about this the wrong way. Its not what do you keep, or how to reassemble the parts – it’ll always come out wrong.
Real effort here is to erase everything – who needs founding fathers and their naive views inspired by the enlightenment.
A single leader. Armed forces. A tribunal. And screw all the rest – who needs it!
While we’re at it – lets rewrite the Bible … in our own image. Get it all done in one move!
That’ll show em.
“For instance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) ”
could find a home in the privately run ul labs.
Newrouter; Sure. And of course the standards would be completely fair and unbiased. /sarc
Fletcher: it is possible that industry could put together a standards group that would properly serve. That said, the notion of standards is something the government is good for; you need a central controlling body, and it’s dreadfully boring but vitally important work.
I’d say Agriculture, but that works too.
Indeed.
Commerce should go, and to the extent that a few agencies are retained, they can either be housed in other departments or spun off into free-standing commissions.
Denying policy does not eliminate the need/uses of it. Parts of Commerce interact with as widely divergent agencies as Defense, Agriculture, Justice, … and even NASA.
Always impresses me the ignorance factor of those who think they understand how the parts of something complex have played together for 100 years. Reminds me of when I was lectured by a Central Valley politico who thought aerospace could/should be dumbed down so he could understand it – if it was too complex, it needed to be thrown out. He was upset about the cost to replace a flight systems computer, and couldn’t see why an IBM PC – JR couldn’t do the job. After all … it worked for him!
As much as I like what Iain is saying in general, I would disagree about DOC being an early target. One of the biggest regulatory disasters for the space industry was taking most export control out of DOC and putting it into ITAR at State. NIST is one o0f the few agencies that have a specific Constitutional justification. Aside from the SBA, which is a huge waste of money and should be abolished immediately, the rest of DOC is one of the more benign and useful parts of the executive branch. Generally speaking, it would be a good rule of thumb to abolish cabinet departments in the reverse order of creation — LIFO. Start with DHS and work backwards.
McGehee – A counterexample to that is the FDA – which has been so captured by business interests that it might as well not be there. Business interests including agribusiness and genetech firms as well as Big Pharma.
An example is the official food pyramid, which most genuine nutritionists think is total and utter nonsense; a diet as high in grains as officially recommended is downright unhealthy, and bears no relation to the diet for which humans are evolved. Another example is the FDA’s hostile attitude to herbal medicines and nutritional supplements.