The White House announced that the FY 2006 budget will include two proposals for dramatic overhauls of government oversight that would become the Gatling gun for destroying federal programs that protect the public health, safety, civil rights, and environment.

• One proposal would create a Sunset Commission to review program performance. As a Congress Daily AM article elaborates, the proposal would also force all government programs to cease serving the public after ten years, unless Congress affirmatively votes to keep the program alive.

President Bush has stated in the past that the United States could "take some lessons from Chile, particularly when it comes to how to run our pension plans." Chile's retirement insurance program has gotten attention lately because the reforms enacted in the country a little over twenty years ago share many similarities with reform plans being discussed by U.S. Republican leaders today. The major similarity is that Chilean workers pay a percentage (roughly 10 percent) of their salaries into private investment accounts. This system was put in place with the thought that these accounts would spur economic growth as well as provide monthly pension benefits larger than what the traditional system could offer. Two major differences, however, include the fact that Chile's private pension system is not currently optional, and also, according to this article in the New York Times, the country "was careful before it started its private system to accumulate several years of budget surpluses." The U.S., unlike Chile, is considering a social security reform in the midst of multiple consecutive years of budget deficits. The New York Times article provides a good description of how Chileans have fared under this system. As the first group of workers to depend on this system begin to retire, it is becoming evident that benefits are falling short of what was originally advertised when the program was put into place, and will unfortunately plunge many once-comfortable retirees into poverty. Not only that, but the Chilean government has had to continue diverting billions of dollars into a safety net for workers whose monthly contributions were not large enough to ensure a minimum pension. While the Chilean and U.S. economies and workforces are different and thus will benefit differently with private pension plans, it helps to look at the problems Chileans are experiencing with their private accounts if we are going to be considering enacting similar policies.

Human Rights Watch is reporting workplace health and safety violations and abuses of worker rights in the meatpacking industry so severe that they constitute breaches of global human rights standards. From their announcement: Workers in the U.S. meat and poultry industry endure unnecessarily hazardous work conditions, and the companies employing them often use illegal tactics to crush union organizing efforts, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

Sen. Bill Frist released his "Top Ten" Legislative Goals for the 108th Congress. Looks like the CARE Act is in the spotlight again. Click here for Frist's Top Ten list. You can get the .pdf with the decription of the proposed language on Sen. Frist's site.