By Tim Redmond
THe Bush Administration is quietly moving to give an eight-member panel appointed by the president the ability to kill any federal program or agency — unlilaterally. I’m not joking; Rollling Stone broke the story, and there’s a post on Daily Kos that lays it out and offers ways to fight back.
Here’s how RS describes it:
“[T]he 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.”
I’ve found very little other press on this, but it’s one of the more frightening things I’ve seen in a while.