06.12.08
Is that a designer muzzle?
From the Wall Street Journal’s health blog comes this shining gem:
FDA Budget Swells as Administration Bows to Congress
In a nutshell, the FDA is the federal agency responsible for regulating the quality and safety of a variety of products. As more manufacturing of drugs has moved overseas, this job has become harder- and a few notable disasters (like the issue with contaminated heparin from China) have highlighted the issues with regulating plants in another country.
One of those issues is simply financial- it’s hard to project a government agency’s influence onto another continent without establishing a real presence there. Yet until now, the FDA hasn’t asked for more money in congressional testimony.
And that’s when the story came out: OMB rules forbid officials from doing so.
“Witnesses will avoid volunteering personal opinions that reflect positions inconsistent with the President’s program or appropriation request.”
There’s been a lot of talk about government officials being muzzled before, but in some ways, this is worse- partly because it’s an explicit rule, and partly because the normal process of debate is losing the feedback of the people in the best position to assess their own needs.
Hence if the administration screws up getting out of bed in the morning the budget, that’s too bad- we’re out more more cog in the system of checks and balances. Ugh.