by Frank James
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) once wanted to destroy the Commerce Dept. But that was then.
Now he wants to run it, having accepted President Barack Obama's nomination to join his cabinet as Commerce Secretary.
It's safe to say some career Commerce staffers may need convincing that Gregg is going to be the best advocate the department could have.
CQ Politics reports on Gregg's former anti-Commerce efforts:
President Obama's new candidate to run the Commerce Department voted in favor of abolishing the agency as a member of the Budget Committee and on the Senate floor in 1995.
Sen. Judd Gregg , R-N.H., whose nomination was expected to be announced Tuesday, also worked in the Senate to trim the department's budget as head of the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee.
Gregg's 1995 votes were cast for the fiscal 1996 budget resolution, a nonbinding blueprint that outlined the GOP's fiscal priorities after Republicans won full control of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
The Senate version of the controversial measure envisioned spending cuts of more than $960 billion, almost half of it from Medicare and Medicaid. Democratic efforts to amend it were uniformly rebuked by a united GOP majority on the Budget Committee.
Ultimately, the Commerce Department survived, and Gregg has since shown more interest than most of his Republican colleagues in funding some of its agencies, particularly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Gregg wasn't alone in wanting to kill the department. That was the goal of a number of Republicans in the early to mid 1990s who wanted to shrink the size of government and targeted Commerce along with the Education and Energy departments for the ax.
But in Washington, it's much easier to start an Executive Branch agency than kill one. (Example: Homeland Security.) So despite the best efforts of Gregg and other Republicans, Commerce remained. It not only beat him, now it's going to absorb him. And that's why some call it the "permanent government."
Comments
So trimming back on budgets and cutting waste is a problem for lifetime bureaucrats? Good. Here's to hoping Gregg doesn't become a newfound porker and earmarxist in the Obama administration.
Posted by: Jeff | February 3, 2009 3:29 PM
There's no fallback option for Wingnut Gregg. If he screws up or fails to fall in line, it's bye bye birdie. His senate seat is gone. It behooves him to play President Obama's game. There's no way the President is going to allow people to play their own departments and if some article comes out showing Gregg's divergence on an issue, the administration is going to come down hard on him.
If Gregg starts acting like he's still taking his marching orders from the leader of the Republican party (Druggy Rush Limbaugh), he'll get kicked to the curb and end up sitting on the sidelines with the rest of the minority member Repug obstructionists.
Posted by: Flubba Porter | February 3, 2009 3:40 PM