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Reminding us that ignorance is alive and well in the midst of the greatest storms, GOP presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, and VP running mate Paul Ryan, hit the campaign trail today to attack President Barack Obama’s statement about potentially creating a “secretary of Business,” reports ABCNews.com.

“He wants to create a new ‘secretary of business,’” Ryan said. “We already have a secretary of business. It’s actually called secretary of commerce. That’s what this agency does. Let me ask you a question: Can anybody name our current secretary of commerce? You know why? We don’t have one! It’s been vacant for over four months … we don’t need another bureaucrat or another bureaucracy, we need another president.”

There are three problems with that statement:

1.) Commerce is a major part of business, but by no means is it business in the whole.

2.) Ryan lied. We do have a secretary of Commerce.

3.) That’s not what President Obama said.

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ABC reports:

The position of secretary of commerce is actually filled by Acting Secretary Rebecca Blank, who replaced former Commerce Secretary John Bryson after he suffered a seizure that caused a car accident in Los Angeles in June, he then resigned.

When he appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the president didn’t suggest that a new position be created out of thin air, rather to consolidate multiple positions for more effective governance:

“I’ve said that I want to consolidate a whole bunch of government agencies,” Obama said. “We should have one secretary of business, instead of nine different departments that are dealing with things like giving loans to SBA [the Small Business Administration] or helping companies with exports.”

Ironically, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue, (remember that pesky little commerce thing that Ryan said President Obama didn’t know anything about?), endorses his plan:

While we can debate what responsibilities government should undertake, we can all agree that government should be more streamlined, efficient, cost effective, and rational. Businesses large and small reinvent themselves constantly — waste, duplication, poor budgeting, and lousy service are a death sentence. Shouldn’t government be as vigilant? What’s needed is some good old-fashioned business know-how, said Donohue.

That’s why the U.S. Chamber supports the Obama administration’s efforts to reorganize and streamline the federal bureaucracy, eliminate wasteful spending, and consolidate and merge agencies, departments, and programs.

Fancy that.

It is quite amazing that being the fiscal conservatives that they are, Romney and Ryan would oppose minimizing government spending. But it’s clear by now that if the POTUS declared that the sky will remain blue, they would scream, “See, he has no experience in sky development; it has never been blue, it is cerulean!”

Though the plan has gained substantial bipartisan support, Romney and Ryan have made it clear what they’re really concerned with:

“We don’t need a secretary of business to understand business,” Romney shrieked in Virginia. “We need a president who understands business and I do!”

Obviously not, Governor. But you do understand ambition and have proven time and again that you will say anything to fulfill yours.

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