If Wishes & Buts Were Cherries & Nuts....

....the federal government would get a lot smaller:

Call it a slight case of overreaction.

Rolling Stone [that noted highbrow journal of learned opinion....], under the headline "Bush’s Most Radical Plan Yet,” reports that "with a vote of hand-picked lobbyists, the President could terminate any federal agency he dislikes.”

If only it were so.

I mean the part about the President disliking any federal agencies. Terminating them with the stroke of a pen would be the stuff of constitutionalist wet dreams.

What the publication is referring to is a provision contained in – or as Rolling Stone puts it, "tucked away in” – the Administration’s 2006 budget proposal calling for a "Sunset Commission” to evaluate federal programs and determine if they merit continued funding.

Sounds good so far....

The commission would set a schedule for reviewing federal programs every ten years. Any programs that fail to justify their existence would be terminated....

Yessssssssss!

....unless Congress acted to continue them.

Nooooooooo!

And how does {snort} Rolling Stone spin this?

[It] warns that the practice would result in "the end of government regulation as we know it,” asserting that the commission would most likely be made up of lobbyists and executives from major corporations currently subject to federal oversight.

Heh. Just stop at "the end of government regulation" and I'd be turning handsprings. What was this? Their special Halloween issue six months early?

Nice try, boys and girls. But if I need an aphrodesiac, I'll go with Lavitra. The chick they have in their commercials is hotter than a plasma leak.