Census Rises while Commerce Sinks
By LisaB on February 6, 2009 at 4:50 PM in Current Affairs
A new development with respect to the Judd Gregg nomination and the Commerce Dept can only be filed under WTH.
According to CQPolitics, the director of the Census Bureau will now report directly to the White House. The census position has always reported to the head of Commerce, so why the change?
According to CQ:
The decision came after black and Hispanic leaders raised questions about Commerce Secretary nominee Judd Gregg’s commitment to funding the census.
Read the rest ->
Gregg, New Hampshire’s senior senator, voted in committee and on the floor for a 1995 Republican budget that envisioned the elimination of the Commerce Department. Of even more concern to black and Hispanic leaders, Gregg battled President Clinton over a request for “emergency” funding for the 2000 census.
Amazing. First, Bill Richardson has to withdraw because, in addition to being a total putz, the dude has some, uh, legal problems. (He may end up the lucky one.)
So, BO goes for Republican Judd Gregg for reasons no one has been able to define since Gregg has been on record as wanting to abolish the Commerce department anyway.
Then, despite world-class vetting from the BO administration, Gregg is still “the man” for the job – except for objections from black and Hispanic leaders who are afraid Gregg will cook the census books somehow.
So, Census is removed from Gregg’s portfolio and will report directly to the president now, along with the car czar, climate czar and special envoys to places where the state department is supposed to be the official face of US policy. And, by the way, the next US census is NEXT YEAR.
How could BO’s people not realize Gregg might be a problem here? Of course they knew. The real question is why they picked him anyway and when they decided to peel off Census.
Census is like accounting. Looks boring but is hugely important, because Census develops the numbers that determine how the country is represented in Congress and how funding flows. We should definitely pay attention if the head of the Census Bureau will be reporting directly to BO. And who is this person going to be?
BO has been undercutting his supposed allies (Reid, Pelosi, etc) for a while now. He has also created new posts to unofficially but effectively bypass official nominees and existing channels. Look at all the new people under him and you’ll see what BO thinks is important. Look at what’s left in the official agencies and departments and look at his nominees for those positions. It makes me wonder.
Still, why Gregg for Commerce? Why nominate someone who voted to abolish Commerce and who would irritate some of BO’s core supporters into the bargain? What’s the point of that? Won’t that deliberately put the whole department into a tailspin by inviting controversy and distraction? To what end? And isn’t THAT nice for the career civil servants who do the actual work.
Yeah, I want a boss who elected to abolish my department. Great sense of job security there.
And don’t tell me they didn’t know. Not these brilliant people. And don’t tell me it was a mistake. That dog won’t hunt. There’s a reason.
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