Bush's Most Radical Plan Yet

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Mon, 25 Apr 2005 21:19:56 -0700 (PDT)

Bush's Most Radical Plan Yet

 

 

 

 

Bush's Most Radical Plan Yet

With a vote of hand-picked lobbyists, the president

could terminate any federal agency he dislikes...

By Osha Gray Davidson

4-24-5

 

 

 

If you've got something to hide in Washington, the best place to bury

it is in the federal budget. The spending plan that President Bush

submitted to Congress this year contains 2,000 pages that outline

funding to safeguard the environment, protect workers from injury and

death, crack down on securities fraud and ensure the safety of

prescription drugs. But almost unnoticed in the budget, tucked away in

a single paragraph, is a provision that could make every one of those

protections a thing of the past.

 

 

 

The proposal, spelled out in three short sentences, would give the

president the power to appoint an eight-member panel called the

" Sunset Commission, " which would systematically review federal

programs every ten years and decide whether they should be eliminated.

Any programs that are not " producing results, " in the eyes of the

commission, would " automatically terminate unless the Congress took

action to continue them. "

 

 

 

The administration portrays the commission as a well-intentioned

effort to make sure that federal agencies are actually doing their

job. " We just think it makes sense, " says Clay Johnson, deputy

director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which

crafted the provision. " The goal isn't to get rid of a program -- it's

to make it work better. "

 

 

 

In practice, however, the commission would enable the Bush

administration to achieve what Ronald Reagan only dreamed of: the end

of government regulation as we know it. With a simple vote of five

commissioners -- many of them likely to be lobbyists and executives

from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight --

the president could terminate any program or agency he dislikes. No

more Environmental Protection Agency. No more Food and Drug

Administration. No more Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

 

 

" Ronald Reagan once observed, 'The closest thing to immortality on

this earth is a federal government program,' " says Rep. Kevin Brady,

a Republican from Texas who has been working for the past nine years

to establish a sunset commission. " We need it to clear out the deadwood. "

 

 

 

Without many of those programs, however, American consumers, workers

and investors would be left to the mercy of business. " This is

potentially devastating, " says Wesley Warren, who served as a senior

OMB official in the Clinton administration. " In short order, this

could knock out protections that have been built up over a generation. "

 

 

 

Others note that the provision goes beyond anything attempted by

conservatives in the past. " When you look at this, " says Marchant

Wentworth, a lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, " it's

almost like the Reagan administration was a trial run. "

 

 

 

The man behind the sunset commission is Clay Johnson, the most

influential member of Bush's inner circle whom you've never heard of.

The two Texans have been close friends since 1961, when they met as

fifteen-year-olds at Andover prep school and later roomed together for

four years at Yale. When Bush was elected governor of Texas in 1994,

he put the buddy he calls " Big Man " --

Johnson is six feet four -- in charge of all state appointments.

Johnson, a former executive at Neiman Marcus and Frito-Lay, refers to

Americans as " customers " and is partial to Chamber of Commerce

bromides such as " We're in the results business. " He is also partial

to giving corporate lobbyists a direct role in gutting regulatory

protections.

 

One of his first acts in Texas was to remove all three members of the

state environmental-protection commission and replace them with a

former Monsanto executive, an official with the Texas Beef Council and

a lawyer for the oil industry. Overnight, a commission widely

respected for its impartiality

 

Johnson continued his anti-regulatory efforts in the early days of the

Bush presidency, when he helped place industry champions in positions

throughout the government. As director of OMB, an obscure but powerful

arm of the White House, he has implemented a " Program Assessment

Rating Tool " to evaluate federal programs and cut funding to those

that are " not getting results. "

 

In reality, though, Johnson uses PART to slash government efforts that

don't fit the administration's political agenda. This year's budget

eliminates twenty percent of the programs that were rated most

effective, including efforts to improve the environment and education,

and increases funding for programs that received the lowest possible

rating -- including an attempt to reduce the number of poor people

claiming a low-income tax credit.

 

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