Veronique de Rugy on the Department of Commerce's Favor-Dispensing Machine.
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Whatever the intentions behind the Department of Commerce and its disparate programs, the results are unimpressive at best and wasteful at worst. Veronique de Rugy writes that worse still are the systematic distortions they introduce into the market. Commerce grants and subsidies are nothing more than privileges bestowed to well-connected special interests. In this age of trillion-dollar deficits and public revulsion at crony capitalism, there has never been a better time to shut down the department. And if we have to destroy it piece by piece, the Economic Development Administration is a good place to start.