Start By Blowing Off Base Closure Commission
President Clinton has threatened to do something deliciously heretical. He reportedly wants to reject the advice of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission and throw a lifeline to a couple of facilities in California.
The possibility has set congressbeings atwitter. Democrats and Republicans warn that the commander in chief’s move could “politicize” a process they were trying to sanitize when they established the commission in the late 1980s. Some even predict civil unrest: If the president goes out on a limb for California, they say, he could alienate people in the other 49 states.
Neither argument seems particularly persuasive.
Most of the sky-is-falling types live in places that might suffer if the president spared bases in the Golden State and had to find victims elsewhere. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a president’s snubbing an independent panel. He has not only a right but a duty to slap down anything that could imperil national security.
Politicians are angry because the president has jeopardized one of Washington’s most cherished institutions. The blue ribbon commission has become the getaway vehicle of choice for politicians who want to escape their obligations as public servants. Whenever an elected official at any level of government sees a nasty controversy approaching, he summons sages, asks for advice and treats it as if it had been handed down from Mount Sinai.
The dodge is especially popular when public servants want to do something untoward, such as sell bonds for a gazillion-dollar sports complex, approve a sex-ed program that includes preschool condom distribution or route a highway through property owned by a friendly contributor.
If the president were to turn down the commission’s handiwork, he would challenge the practice of letting invisible appointees do legislators’ dirty work. Taken to its logical extreme, this kind of thing could lead to - congressional accountability!
But breathe easy. The possibility remains a remote one.
Washington has become a compost pile of posteriorprotecting panels. According to the latest “Encyclopedia of Governmental Advisory Organizations,” Congress and the executive branch make use of more than 6,600 advisory committees, commissions and conferences. Check the number again: six thousand six hundred. The president himself loves to set up these conclaves. Remember the health-care task force?
These groups handle everything from base closings to management of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. In theory, each commission promotes democracy. Federal law demands that advisory committees draft charters, publish schedules, hold open hearings and do as much as possible before the public’s watchful eye.
But let’s face it. The latest meeting of the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel on DI (2-Ethylhexyl) Phthalate isn’t going to push O.J. off the front pages. The only folks who fret about its deliberations have a personal interest in the future of DI (2-Ethylhexyl) Phthalate.
Narrowly focused advisory panels virtually invite mischief. They let foxes count hens - with special interests playing the vulpine role and tax dollars posing as yummy chickens - in areas that attract zero public attention or passion.
Like most bureaucratic accretions, these confabs never die.
Bill Clinton signed an executive order two years ago demanding that the government shut down a third of its advisory commissions. But whenever lawmakers kill one of the things, another sprouts up.
The pox afflicts not only the executive and legislative branches of government, but also both political parties. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, one of my favorite pols, came up with the base-closing brainstorm a few years back.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich came down with commission-itis last week after Sen. Jesse Helms made the impolite point that many AIDS victims contract their disease through unwise behavior. (Ironically, the tobaccostate senator has never made that argument about lung cancer research.) Rather than nuzzling up to the controversial Helms, the speaker talked about turning the federal medical research budget over to a band of experts.
Note the assumption: Congress isn’t wise enough to figure out how to spend money, so it asks outsiders to decide. But if honorables aren’t competent to distribute revenue, maybe they shouldn’t have dominion over the money in the first place.
Nor should they have recourse to blue ribbon genies who let them enjoy the perks of power without having to feel the sting of censure. Previous legislatures didn’t resort to surrogate government. The feds organized fewer than 90 commissions in the first 150 years of America’s history.
The president’s musings thus suggest a wonderful change. De-commission Washington. Shut down the advisory groups, and make lawmakers take the full heat for what they do - and don’t do.
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