January 30, 2007
Bush requires political commissars to oversee federal agencies.
NY Times link. In a move straight out of the Soviet Union, indeed straight out of Czarist Russia, so-called President Bush has ordered that every federal agency have a political commissar attached who will oversee the agency and make sure that the political needs of the administration take priority over its normal duties. The primary purpose is to prevent such agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) from enforcing regulations against the corporations that have taken over the country. They can't stop Congress from passing laws, so they prevent the government from enforcing them. It's a giant leap towards strengthening the police state that has replaced the constitutional government, but it is unlikely that a supine, greedy, corrupt and selfish American public will do anything to fight it, since they prefer the profits they can gain from investing in these corporations to the rule of law, democracy and constitutional government.
President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.
In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.
This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.
The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Besides burdening the American taxpayer will major and unnecessary expenses, it will cause more pollution, make workplaces more dangerous, increase the likelihood of consumers receiving dangerous food and drugs and generally lower the quality of life in the country.
As the article succintly notes, "Business groups hailed the initiative." But of course. After all, it's their country.
In a way though, this could be good. Excessive regulation of this type was a major cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union, so this could be interpreted as another step hastening the inevitable and coming collapse of the American Union. I'm not just joking here either. In the event of another 9/11 or some other attack on the US, it is quite conceivable that those in charge of responding will not do so because they haven't received permission from the corporates in charge to do so, or they are afraid of being sued.
