R.I.P., Department of Commerce? President Obama Seeks to Consolidate Government Agencies

Hmmm. Makes sense. So naturally Republicans will whine, and attempt to stop it.

Great idea. But not the Tea Party’s or the GOP’s idea, so it stinks. Running against Congress is easy when Congress makes it easy to run against Congress.

Just shifting folks from one place to another…. and the net new headcount in DC is approx 40K (read the census, and the pop counts by housing).

The President wants to “fire” the redundant and inefficient government employees! Someone should ask him if he enjoys doing this?

They also ignore the fact that GW increased the size, scope, reach, invasiveness and cost of the government more than any modern president including Obama, through the creation of the Homeland Security department and the passage of the Patriot Act.

Posted by: A Cynic | January 13, 2012, 12:05 pm 12:05 pm

Republican presidents grow government. It’s a fact.

Meanwhile, Mark Levin wants to know who Mitt Romney is after viewing a videotape (available at Real Clear Politics) in which Romney says, “”There are some, if you will, classical Republicans, and I don’t want to be political here. The classical Republican approach is to say you know what makes America so great is our great corporations. And if we just clear the decks so that corporations can be more successful and give them more money, and make it easier for them to succeed. Well, then we will do even better on the world stage. I don’t happen to subscribe to that traditional Republican caricature.”

Do the Republicans defending his vulture capitalism subscribe to that view? I think the RP Pac’s parody of Mitt is right. It’s hard to tell the diff between the fake Mitt and the real fake Mitt.

“I mean, who is this man? Can somebody tell me WHO IS MITT ROMNEY? It’s a simple question! I don’t know! And the problem is, 75% of you don’t know either! And we want an answer! …Honest to God, I want to like the guy! Who the —-is he?! I don’t know! And that’s the problem.”– Mark Levin

Son of a gun, J-Bone…..I have been asking the same question about Obama for 3 years or so……WHO IS BARACK OBAMA?

“And let me be clear: I will only use this authority for reforms that result in more efficiency, better service, and a leaner government.” Works in theory, but what happens when the office of Chief Executive has more power and he isn’t Chief Executive? One of the big problems with national government is one administration arrogating more power for its specific ends and another using that power for a different purpose. Instead of blindly following the philosopy that national government does everything and merging multiple departments into yet another superagency, why not look at eliminating some departments entirely and returning their authority to the states?

“He said we have a redundant and inefficient structure, which is true.” But only when Rudolf the red nosed raindeer was asked by Santa to lead his sleigh tonight did all the other reindeer shouted out with glee.

1/400th of 1.2 trillion is 3 billion. That’s a pretty big savings.

FINALLY!!! It took him 3 yrs to finally come up with a plan to cut something! Must be the looming campaign….

Do you really think he is going to cut government employees when he has spend his entire Presidency expanding them. People, People, I have some ocean front property in AZ if you go for this one.

Why don’t they do like most religious nuts: blame Obama

Obama and DNC amass $240,000,000

Missing 1.2 billion from Obama friend and confidant Corzine’s MF Globa
$535 million gone from Obama “pet project” Solyndra and Obama fund raiser Kaisor

“follow the money?” lol ABC and democrat talking heads sawyer and little Georgie would get “lost”

OBAMA________VS_______AMERICA

This is exactly what the Republicans want but he is a Democrat so they will stop everything until November. IF a Republican wins, they will suddenly come up with this INCREDIBLE idea as if it were theirs. If Obama takes it in November, Congress will be hard pressed to explain why they do not want a smaller, more efficient government. Federal employment is DOWN – 200,000 jobs at last count. The military MUST share in the cost cutting, they are most of the cost. The employees will not just be fired. What I have read indicates it will be mostly through attrition – do not replace those who retire.

It won’t happen. Not with Obama. It’s all election year talk.

PKSK531: I’ve decided that Republicans WANT FAILURE until they get in and RUIN the Country AGAIN! As far as I’m concerned, Obama is doing just GREAT and despite these Republicans that are so clueless that it STANDS out on they faces such as Michelle Bachmann’s look of contant surprise. President Obama please do ALL the good things you want because that bunch of NO Guys standing in the way of PROGRESS will lose in November. They can’t HIDE that very CREEPY part of their jealous nature!!! What are the jealous about? That they have a big PILE of LOSERS running for President. And NONE of them are worth too many votes. OBAMA 2012!!!

grumpopolis wrote :”i’m sure it’s just a coincidence that all the agencies listed are agencies that promote free-market and commercial interests.”
.
0Boma just wants to consolidate them to give him cover for unlawful appointing of more of his radical cronies to new positions in those agencies. Then his capitalist cronies only have to shop in one place for political favors. Nothing here is being done to promote free-market.

Totally out of character. The guy is a political cameleon.

Mr President, while you’re at it ….The Dept of Ed has increased its budget 10-30 times while SAT test scores recently hit a new low; the Dept of Energy was supposed to guie America to energy independence; yet, we’ve only become more dependent; Nixon took over AMTRAC and said it’d be on its feet in a couple of years; the Post Office needed $9B taxpayer assistance last year; we were told welfare would help end poverty, but has it; the war on drugs was supposed to rid us of the drug problem, but has it??? Crony capitalism – Solyndra and other green companies that are failing even with miollions of dollars of taxpayer assistance. There is a consistent pattern – do you see it??? The government has failed or is failing at all of these (and I’m sure there are more).

newcountry, at this point, obama would likely do anything to secure re-election (just like the rest of them). i also think he and his team (now that they know they’ll be running against romney) are very afraid that romney will expose obama’s pitifully inadequate command of financial and economic issues. i’m no big romney fan, but it’s basically unarguable that compared to obama, romney’s a genius when it comes to finance and economics. obama knows absolutely nothing about just about anything in the real world. he’s a living example of the old adage “in theory there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.”

Yeah, whatever! The guy’s advisers are telling him people are listening to people like Ron Paul.
He’s campaigning these promises, then he’ll never deliver. Obama HIRED thousands of people for the American Community Survey ( which was run by the Department of Commerce ). It asks you what time you wake up, leave your home, how much you make, where you work, how many flights of stairs you have, if you’re handicapped, how many times you flush your toilet…. Then if you don’t fill it out, they threaten you with a fine.

so if it made so much sense, why did it take him over 3 years to propose and wait until it’s his re-elcetion year where he needs to be “practical” and moving to the center? and you call yourself a cynic?

From the Chicago Tribune; Obama wants to put the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other trade bodies now spread across Washington, the U.S. Export-Import Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corp, the Trade and Development Agency, the Small Business Administration and parts of the Commerce Department under a new roof – something that has been under discussion for years.

Now be honest. Has anyone even heard of half of these bureacracies?

Will his next power grab to be change his title to Dictator from President?? If he really was concerned about the $15,000,000,000,000.00 debt then maybe he would cancel OBAMACARE?? The real question for 2012 is are Democrats/Independents really this gullible???

So, since blaming Bush is not working, now obama is blaming Nixon??

Grumpopolis: The Senate is less than 1/3 of the amount of people in the house and the house has quite a few MORONS in it!! I believe people take voting in a Senator much more seriously than they do their Rep. because a Rep only covers a small district of a state while a Senator is voted in by the WHOLE citizenry of the State!!! But, perhaps they ALL SHOULD GO! Of course, I’m just blowing off steam which comes from a huge frustration after seeing THESE Elected Officials DOING NOTHING!! They have a NERVE to tell the poor and unemployed to get themselves up and working but what are THEY doing? NOTHING!

If he really was concerned about the $15,000,000,000,000.00 debt then maybe he would cancel OBAMACARE??
—————————————

All the non-partisan analysis [like by the CBO] say that eliminating the Affordable Care Act will ADD to the debt. If the Republicans are really concerned about the debt why can’t they submit a budget plan that will reduce it? So far all of their plans will add to the debt significantly. Are Republican voters really that gullible?

Another Trillion or he will throw a temper tantrum. When are the congress going to tell him time out and pout in the corner. This is enough guys and girls enough. Wake up his pals are getting richer and blame others for thier good fortune.

Meanwhile…

The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced this morning that the November trade deficit rose to -$47.8 billion, its worst level since June, as imports rose by nearly $3 billion and exports fell by $1.5 billion.

The trade deficit with Germany rose to just below the record level set in October of 2005. The 2011 trade deficit with China is only $1 billion below the record set in 2010, and that’s with a full month to go in 2011. The only question is whether the trade deficit with China will top $300 billion.

The U.S. trade deficit continued its slow but steady worsening since President Obama, in January of 2009, set a goal of doubling exports in five years.

Posted by: Here’s Your Change | January 13, 2012, 4:02 pm 4:02 pm

Europe’s prolonged debt crisis is afftecting American exports. This is a surprise to you? Do the right wingers know nothing about the global economy?

Only Nixon could go to China. Bill Clinton reformed welfare. Obama is slashing the military and wants to close business related government entities. Instead if he proposed closing/reforming the Education Department, Health and Human Services Energy Department and other liberal sacred cows he may not look so politically motivated. Can anyone say enemies list.

POSTED BY: B-K KNIGHTRIDER | JANUARY 13, 2012, 3:58 PM =====This guy actually believes people take the time to read his entire rants…

What a sad lot of Republican candidates. Regardless of any missteps or shortcomings, the current President is far, far better than anyone the Republicans have put forward.

And Melon Collie, you would better serve your own intelligence and the country if you bothered to research the roots of the current debt, how the economic crash on Bush’s shift stripped billions in tax revenues out of the system, how the two wars continued to bankrupt the nation, same with the seniors drug plan, same with the Bush tax cuts.

Bush rang up spending AND cut taxes leaving the country in larger deficit and debt and in a very poor state to handle the economic crash on his watch.

Oh I know! Let’s just blame it on Obama. Most right wingers don’t even believe that hogwash anymore.

Jane (4:11 PM) Our exports are 13% of our economy. 19% of those go to Europe (26% to our NAFTA partners). If Europe were to experience another massive recession (say a 10% conrtraction) the effect on our economy would be a reduction of one tenth of one fifth of one seventh of our economy, or less than three tenths of one percent. That is a rounding error in economic terms. The multitude of regulations passed by this administration have reduced our growth rate by a far greater amount.

Pres Barry requests $1.2 trillion debt increase Thursday. (To go along with his already-racked up $5 trillion debt.)

Then on Friday he announces a plan to save a whopping $3 billion.

And the liberal media laps it up.

Posted by: ionagoal | January 13, 2012, 7:42 pm 7:42 pm

Perhaps you missed it, we were talking about the reductions in balance of trade, not the overall economy.

Posted by: Janie | January 13, 2012, 9:21 pm 9:21 pm

No senators voted for President Obama’s 2012 budget when it came up for a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate. A procedural vote to move forward on the president’s plan failed 0-97.

“1/400th of 1.2 trillion is 3 billion. That’s a pretty big savings.” – mettahu

No it isn’t.
1/400 of $20,000 is $50.
If you were buying a car and the dealer took $50 off you wouldn’t say that’s big.

OK, obviously the Republicans are correct here. We should NOT try to save a few bucks, we should NOT try to streamline the federal government at all, and we should NOT try to consolidate and make these various departments more efficient. We should simply go on with business as usual. That is what will make them happy and stop their whining.

LOL! This “liberal” president loves to raise taxes and grow government. Imagine that: he extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, gave a tax cut to the middle class and small businesses, and now is consolidating departments with overlapping responsibilities for greater efficiency. This guy is insane. Seriously!

“I mean, who is this man? Can somebody tell me WHO IS MITT ROMNEY? It’s a simple question! I don’t know! And the problem is, 75% of you don’t know either! And we want an answer! …Honest to God, I want to like the guy! Who the —-is he?! I don’t know! And that’s the problem.”– Mark Levin

POSTED BY: J-BONE | JANUARY 13, 2012, 12:16 PM 12:16 PM____________You think Mitt Romney is a “conservative?” The man has all of you people fooled

Here’s an idea. Get government OUT of the business of deciding which businesses fail and which succeed. Streamline from 6 agencies to 0, not 1.