Two days after Barack Obama was inaugurated, I gave him some political advice:
In the run-up to the 2012 Election, President Obama should propose abolishing the [Department of Commerce]. It would be his equivalent of Bill Clinton’s support of school uniforms and V-Chip: small, symbolic gestures that send a sort of cultural signal. You can trust the Democrats to run the government frugally. (One could argue that no Democrat ever wants to send this signal because it reinforces a Republican frame, but I don’t think that that’s true: even socialists don’t like to waste money). The Gingrich Republicans vowed to eliminate the Department, but as with most conservative beliefs, it was quickly forgotten as soon as the GOP took power. This would be a nice act of political jiujitsu if Obama could do it.
And just this week, he proposed just that!
Now if only he would listen to me on everything else, we could actually get somewhere.
Okay, but which department is supposed to be in charge of formulating a decent jobs and industrial policy, or *something* to help build back a middle class?
It may be conventional wisdom that manufacturing is necessary for a strong economy, but until I hear something better, I plan to keep believing it.
So, even if Commerce doesn’t do much, I’d like to know who *is* doing this? This administration seems to have plenty of time to negotiate more “free” trade agreements. What about having more of a strategy than that?
I hate this kind of election year cr*p. I promise you by election time those idiot “independents” won’t remember this either.
Okay, but which department is supposed to be in charge of formulating a decent jobs and industrial policy, or *something* to help build back a middle class?
That would be some combination of the Fed and Congress.
The Fed? No offense but I don’t think so. It simply wouldn’t occur. And Congress can’t find its way out of a bag.
I never claimed that they were actually doing their job, but that is their job, not anyone else’s.
More importantly that an “industrial policy,” what about the Bureau of the Censue? The Bureau of Economic Analysis? The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration? The National Institute of Standards? The Patent Office? (Well, maybe we could lose the Patent Office…)