THE END OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION?

Rolling Stone unveils another radical Bush plan that's escaping the notice of the media and the citizenry:

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."
...
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.
...
Either way, opponents consider the commission a serious threat. "The end result," says Waxman, "would be a field day for corporate lobbyists."

Consider how much of Bush's agenda is being accomplished under the radar screen. Have you seen anything more about this in the mainstream media?

There's so much going on, how on earth can we fight it all? Well, as long as our media remains obsessed with runaway brides and death watches (though not in Iraq or Darfur), and our legislators are too busy cutting taxes for the wealthy, rewriting the bankruptcy laws and attacking our independent judiciary, we can't.

What's it cost to live in the south of France?