I was browsing old news stories on Lexis Nexis, and found this one, which makes me weep for the days of newly empowered Republicans wih guts. It was a brief in the New Orleans TImes-Picayune:
REPUBLICANS SEEK TO ELIMINATE COMMERCE Republicans renewed their campaign to kill the Commerce Department on Wednesday, calling it a critical test of their commitment to small government. “We are beginning to see a fight for the soul of the Republican Party,” said Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Budget Committee. Eliminating the Commerce Department, he said, would be a way to show that, three years after taking over Congress, the party had not been co-opted by lobbyists and Washington insiders. Commerce has long been at the top of the list of departments that Republicans say are bureaucratic and redundant and should be done away with. The departments of Education and Housing and Energy are also targets. A bill to eliminate Commerce passed the House last year, but stalled in the Senate.
Sigh, those were the days….when bills to eliminate entire federal departments passed chambers of Congress. Beautiful.
