Death to the Department of Commerce

Did you catch John Stossel on the Daily Show? He was talking about the ENORMOUS size of the Federal Government and how we should pare it back to nothing again.

These people crack me up.

John Stewart asked what he’d eliminate, and he started red-lining top-level departments, like the Department of Commerce and Department of Education. He seemed ready to continue, but Stewart was blown away by this suggestion enough he had to interrupt.

Now, I know why a lot of people want to eliminate the Department of Education, but Commerce was a new one on me. In fact, I wasn’t real clear what the Department of Commerce did, but unlike Stossel this didn’t suggest to me that we could just throw the whole thing in the trash bin. I, being a liberal and prone to nuance and egg-headedness, decided to take a look at what Stossel was suggesting.

Elimination of the DOC would mean the death of:

1. Bureau of Industry and Security which, among other things, ensures the American Defense Industry is healthy enough to meet Federal defense needs. They also enforce laws prohibiting the free trade of arms to other nations. Without them, anyone who wanted to make a buck would be free to manufacture nukes and sell them to North Korea. Does John Stossel support arming North Korea?
2. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does more we depend on than you could ever imagine. Besides being the nation’s meteorologists, they make ocean charts, monitor climate change, provide those nifty satellite pictures that let you know when bad weather is coming. Without NOAA there would be no hurricane warnings. You would just step outside one day, say “my, this is a bad storm,” and then have a 2×4 driven through your forehead. Does John Stossel support having 2×4s driven through people’s foreheads?
3. Bureau of the Census These people gather the data a lot of the rest of the government relies upon. Much of the makeup of our Representative government depends on numbers from this department. Without it, we would not know how many representatives each state gets, for example. Does John Stossel support the complete dismantling of our Representative government? (Come to think of it, probably yes.)
4. Economic Development Association provides federal funds to people wishing to start up businesses. In other words, they create jobs. John Stossel apparently doesn’t like small businesses.
5. International Trade Administration acts as sort of a hunting dog/guard dog for businesses trading in the International market. They tell American companies were the good markets are for what, and they also protect American companies from illegal dumping. John Stossel thinks China should be allowed to dump cheap products on us until our economy is devastated, then buy us out.
6. Patent and Trademark Office Got an invention? Want it stolen and sold for massive profit by a company better able to manufacture that invention than you? Then go ahead, toast the PTO. Also, without the PTO, we could all call ourselves Microsoft or Disney. So, basically, John Stossel doesn’t believe in intellectual property. (How lefty of him.)
7. National Institute of Standards and Technology is a non-regulatory agency that helps US companies work together to make sure their products play nice with each other. Like the fact that you can put your bank card in the ATM of a bank to which you don’t belong and get money out of it? If John Stossel had his way, this would never have happened.

There are other departments as well: people making sure the rural folks have phones and Internet access, people making money available to depressed urban areas for businesses, that sort of thing.

Does John Stossel know that without the DOC we wouldn’t know if there was a hurricane coming? Probably not. Or that without the DOC, intellectual property protection would rely on drive-by shootings? I’m pretty sure that answer is “no.”

He probably doesn’t know this because, like Ann Coulter, he knows there are no complex issues and nuance is just a distraction.