WASHINGTON — Former Texas Sunset Commissioner O.H. "Ike" Harris, Barbara Coufal of AFSME, and Gabriela Lemus of LULAC and Robert Shull of OMB Watch will brief journalists on a dangerous proposal to create an unelected, unaccountable commission empowered to target programs for elimination. More than 300 organizations are opposing the creation of a sunset commission. Speakers tomorrow will discuss the legislation, the Texas experience, and the threat that such commissions pose to the most vulnerable members of our society.

OMB Watch told Congress today that the Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) draws biased conclusions about federal program efficacy and should thus continue to be largely ignored by Congress. Adam Hughes, OMB Watch's director of federal fiscal policy, testified on PART before a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee, during a hearing held by Committee Chair Tom Coburn (R-OK) to investigate why PART is not more widely used by Congress.

The president's recent budget, released in early February, contained another round of federal program assessments produced by the Office of Management and Budget using the administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). As in past years, this new round of PART scores and associated budget requests call into question the value and purpose of PART ratings, which appear to have little logical and no discernable link to budget requests.

The president's Fiscal Year 2007 (FY 07) budget would set the nation on a dangerous fiscal path and does nothing to honestly address the federal government's looming budgetary challenges. The budget--totaling $2.77 trillion--would make permanent the president's first-term tax cuts, which primarily benefit the wealthy, and pay for those cuts in part by cutting some entitlement programs and drastically reducing domestic discretionary spending (outside of homeland security and defense).