TW: As this Economist piece points out the Commerce Department is probably one of the least useful organizations in the federal government. Those Dems getting uptight about Gregg as the new nominee should chill. Will the Department ever be abolished? Almost certainly not as the Dems unfortunately rarely try to get rid of departments and with a name like Commerce the Republicans would panic at the thought of abolishing something remotely tied to business.
From Economist:
"MY COLLEAGUE wonders what Judd Gregg wants out of his appointment as commerce secretary. My take: who cares, he's commerce secretary. Here's how David Rothkopf, a former commerce official, describes his old department:
The Commerce Department is a bureaucratic hodge-podge held together by those old Washington stand-bys of inertia, habit, and the self-interests of Congressional appropriators. Oh, and neglect. And ignorance. Not only do most Americans not know what the Commerce Department does -- its various missions are so diffuse most people who work there don't know all that it does.
Mr Rothkopf served during the government shudown of the mid-90s, when he says
We were asked to identify "essential personnel" who would be asked to come in to work in any case. That was tough enough. Harder still was recognizing after a while that you could probably shut the whole operation down and it would be six months before you got a letter of complaint from a constituent who noticed.
Prediction: You will not hear about Judd Gregg again until the day he resigns. (Unless he owes back taxes.)"
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