Drowning it in the bathtub

Friend Arthur in KC sent me this rather than go to the effort to post it himself! It dovetails pretty well with my post yesterday about the effort to prove government can't work by appointing incompetents to head every government agency.

Radical Plan to Kill or Realign Federal Programs

"Sunset Commission" Bill Could Leave Public Powerless to Save Important
Programs

Whether you care about safe workplaces or farmers' markets, public parks or
domestic abuse shelters, the programs that you care about are at risk from a
bill that would create a backdoor for their elimination. Without you or your
representatives' say, programs and even whole agencies could be killed or
restructured to the point of making their work impossible.

A threat is now building in the House of Representatives: some lawmakers are
pushing legislation that would force all federal programs--from Head Start
to Even Start; from EPA to OSHA; and from urban development to rural
healthcare--to defend themselves before an unelected commission.

This one "sunset commission" would make recommendations to kill,
consolidate, or "realign" all programs (with rare exception), and would have
the power to force its recommendations through Congress, limiting your
representatives' ability to save important programs from the chopping block.

People who rely on these services and the nonprofit organizations that
provide them could be left completely in the dark, with no way of knowing
whether their programs are on the chopping block and no way to save them.

The threat is real. In the scramble for votes to pass the budget, a handful
of lawmakers were able to strike a deal with House leaders: in exchange for
their votes, they were promised that a bill for sunset commissions would be
put to a vote in the coming months. We expect this vote as early as June.

OMB Watch is following these dangerous proposals and working with other
groups to stop this radical plan. To learn more and stay on top of the
latest developments, check out www.OMBWatch.org/sunset
<http://www.ombwatch.org/sunset>.