Bush's Sunset Blvd.

Rolling Stone magazine finds a frightening little clause tucked away in President Bush's new, 2,000-page budget. In one single paragraph, there is a provision that could eliminate all of those pesky environmental protections, workplace rights, and consumer regulations that Americans support - but Bush and his lobbyist pals hate.

Specifically, the Bush budget "would give the president the power to appoint an eight-member panel called the 'Sunset Commission." Sounds benign, except for the fact that this commission would essentially be able to terminate any federal program it wants. Every 10 years, the commission would "systematically review federal programs." Any programs that the commission said was "not producing results" (deliberately vague language) would "automatically terminate unless the Congress took action to continue them."

As Rolling Stone points out, "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." Forget about your elected representatives in Congress, elections about issues, or anything else like that. This Commission would essentially supercede all that democracy, and put huge decisions in the hands of a few unelected hacks.

Make no mistake about it - this Sunset Commission might look as beautiful as Sunset Blvd. to Corporate America. But you can bet its going to be Skid Row for the rest of us (Ok, that's a shamefully putrid analogy, but I had to try).