Sunday, February 15, 2009

Commerce Secretary Nomination Withdrawal

http://www.wmur.com/politics/18702350/detail.html

This is as good of a link as any to the story about the nomination withdrawal by Judd Gregg. It covers his statement. For those of you that don't know this was Obama's Republican pick after Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination for the position over potential follow the money scandal. Some feel that a republican pick for this position was a flimsy attempt "reach across the aisle" and have both democrats and republicans in his cabinet.

If you aren't sure what the department of commerce does, here is a link to their mission and organization.
http://dms.osec.doc.gov/cgi-bin/doit.cgi?204:112:f23c40e440fd58af1c94886c8dafe2a0115c34e0e318d0b74b9aa67fc54ea5be:288

Here's the deal. One of the big responsibilities over for this department was to handle the census. However Obama decided to take this responsibility away from the department of commerce and create a Census Bureau with a separate director. This is apparently one of the triggers that contributed to Gregg's decision to withdraw his name from the nomination.

Here's where I see a problem with census policy. If you give it to someone you have fundamental policy differences with, charge over the census, you might not get the numbers you want. For example we have a big issue with illegals in this country or people that are here on work visas only, depending on your beliefs you might think they ought to count towards the census or you might not. If you start to count them in the census as citizens, then you are setting legal precedence to allow them full citizenship even if they broke the law to get here. Which leads to the right to vote in elections. Hence why you would take that responsibility away from someone you appointed that you generally disagree with for political cooperation and give it to someone who's on board with your policies. That's just one problem I see offhand. I might be way off base and welcome any correction from anyone. I'm no expert. But neither has any other president been on every subject, so don't hold that against me in the next election.

As for the commerce department, other than the census, this might be one of the departments that I would dissolve when I get in office. I don't see much of a point of it and at this point think it is likely a bloated government bureaucracy that is not serving much purpose to the tax payers. I will have to do some more research over the next few years to determine if my initial assessment is a good one.

I'd like to know your opinion of Judd Gregg's action. Do you agree or disagree with it? Is it more complicated than that? do you care? I suppose if you don't care you didn't bother to read this far.

5 comments:

Len said...

Considering that there are already two other Republicans in President Obama's cabinet, I do not see how you could view this as a "flimsy attempt [to] reach across the aisle and have both Democrats and Republicans in his cabinet."

He already has both Democrats and Republicans in his cabinet.

Amber Sunshine said...

If by "you" you mean me personally.. I did not put my personal opinion in that statement. I said "some feel"...and you make a valid point. However flimsy or not was not the real point of the post. It was to get your view on Gregg's withdrawal. However we can talk about this. Perhaps it is viewed as a flimsy attempt since the most important job, the census, was taken away from him, and perhaps the rest of that department's function is viewed as a nonessential waste of taxpayer dollars. While I respect his leaving Gates in as the secretary of defense, I am under the impression that it is on a temporary basis. Either way I have a lot of respect for that decision.

My view point came in on potential difference of opinions on the census policy and whether or not the commerce department was even necessary at all.

Thanks for stopping by..

Chris Wysocki said...

Len can't admit that Barry's grand plan to hijack the census hit a big snag with Gregg's withdrawal. Barry wanted a Republican to cover his brazen political takeover of a traditionally nonpartisan job. Gregg should never have entertained the job offer, but since he did, it's to his credit that he refused to be the patsy for a blatant power grab.

Jerry said...

Obama and his backers are liberal progressives and they are employing the tactics of Stalin and the ideology of Marx to turn the US into a socialist country.


The Socialist Party candidate for President of the US , Norman Thomas, said this in a 1944 speech:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America

Gregg may have been optimistic and
ambitious at first but after working more closely realized these people are not just Democrats but against American principles, local rule and capitalism, that made this country great. To move the country to their ideology they can't allow independent thinking people to have any power. That's all they are interested in doing is gaining power to impose their will on us because we don't know what's good for us.

Amber Sunshine said...

Good point Jerry...I found another quote in my search to check what you posted.

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." ~~Margaret Thatcher

Sadly with our system, only a small majority of people have to buy into the magic pipedream adopted by liberalism...

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