So, Judd Gregg will become Commerce Secretary, and a Republican will keep Gregg's seat in the Senate. Gregg's lifetime Progressive Punch rating of 10.08 out of 100.00, and 6.91 "when the chips are down," should make him a much needed right-wing champion for the Commerce Department. Gregg should also be a useful voice during cabinet meetings, making sure that President Obama and the other radical liberals there don't over-reach.
Now, even though Gregg is a conservative Republican and I am a progressive Democrat, I generally agree with the argument that there are no progressives qualified to run the government. We are incompetent managers after all, just like Republicans have always said. This is why I did not apply for a job in the Obama administration. Better to leave it to the serious, non-ideological people.
Further, bipartisan gestures like this are likely to pay big dividends when President Obama and congressional Democrats need Republican support. Results speak for themselves, and Republicans have been voting with Democrats at a record pace so far during 2009.
Yet further, I agree with the arguments that the Commerce Department isn't very important. For one thing, it only has a budget of $8.2 billion. Even beyond its meager finances, as I explain in the extended entry, it also touches on a number of entirely unimportant areas.
The Census: Ten years ago, during a fight between the Census bureau and the Clinton administration about the use of statistical sampling in the Census (so as not to undercount poor urban areas), Gregg presided over the Senate subcommittee in charge of Census funding. While he did not release funds with as strongly anti-sampling restrictions as did the House, he did "include a prohibition against making "irreversible" plans for sampling." Hopefully, Gregg won't work to undercount low income urban areas in the 2010 census, too.
Broadband stimulus grants: The Commerce Secretary also presides over the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA). According to both the House and Senate stimulus packages, the NTIA will be in charge of distributing the majority of the grants. Right now, the debate is over whether these grants will go to local governments, or directly to telecommunication companies. Given Gregg's awesomely progressive record, it isn't hard to figure out that these grants are pretty much just going to turn into corporate welfare now.
The Commerce department is also involved with intellectual property law, trade deals, and environmental protection of the oceans. These are important things, and not simply to be brushed aside.
Now, the counter-argument to this is two-fold. First, that Gregg's replacement, Bonnie Newman, will probably vote like Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. Second, that Newman won't run in 2010, thus making the seat easier to win. However, there is an easy rebuttal to those claims: we don't know how Newman will vote, and we might not win the seat in 2010 anyway. Essentially, we are handing over an entire federal department to a right-wing conservative in exchange for the possibility of an election victory in 2010 and one more vote on a few pieces of legislation in 2009-2010. So, we get possibilities, while a right-wing Republican gets a federal department.
That's a pretty crappy deal. Our ability to win elections in 2010 will be dependant on how effectively we govern in 2009-2010. If we govern like conservative Republicans, which we will now be doing in the Commerce department, we will probably get booted out of office, just like they were. And, when they get back in power, liberal Democrats won't be running the Departments of Defense, Commerce and Tranportation.
As an anti-spam measure, there is a 24-hour waiting period after registering before new users can comment. blog advertising is good for you
blog advertising is good for you
