Candid comments from Commerce official

Caribbean Herald Saturday 13th December, 2003

Candid comments by Deputy Commerce Secretary Samuel W. Bodman have surfaced as he awaits Senate confirmation for a post in the Treasury Department.

A transcript of a day-long manufacturing symposium held in June, offers a rare dose of candor about the limits of the government's power, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

It is very hard for this government to have a vision on anything. We are totally stove-piped, and we live within these compartments, Bodman said. This is not by way of an excuse. It is by way of a fact.

Bodman said the time it takes to make an organizational change in the federal government is years not months so it isn't attempted very often because, It's not worth it.

The inherent authority of this department within the government is modest, he said. The measure of one's manhood or womanhood is one's budget size, but we have a $5 billion budget. That sounds like a lot. It's peanuts in this town.

Bodman's statements were first reported on Dec. 5 in Manufacturing & Technology News after the trade publication submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the transcript of the symposium, that had been closed to the media.