There are currently six major federal departments or agencies that focus on business or trade: the U.S. Department of Commerce’s core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.
The President is asking Congress for the authority to merge those six entities into a single department tasked with boosting American business and promoting competitiveness.
The way the system is currently organized, every entrepreneur who needs to do business with the government has to navigate a maze of overlapping regulations and competing bureaucracy.
We've put together a chart that shows exactly how impossible that process can be.
This move from President Obama would change that.
He's hoping to consolidate the redundancies that currently exist, to cut waste, and eliminate duplication.
