Few people really know how government works. Sure, we have a President and a Congress and the court system, and the States have their counterparts, like the governor, a state legislature and state courts. But beyond that, what exactly do the government officials do all day? Many people really can't answer this question, which is why an extremely important and disturbing front page story in the New York Times today will be ignored immediately.

This topic is somewhat boring, but it affects our lives directly, particularly our health and also product safety and any other protection against unbridled greed. I'll try to make it interesting.

Here's the poop: when Congress passes a law, the Executive Branch has to enforce it. So all the agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and so on, are located within the Executive Branch. Everyone in these agencies reports to the President. The idea is that the people working in these agencies are supposed to be experts and civil servants who get the job based on merit. Since many of them work for the agency no matter who's president, they are supposed to work free from political pressure and know what they are doing.

To help them do their jobs, these civil servants draft regulations which guide their work. The regulations have the force of law but they have to be consistent with the laws passed by Congress.

When it comes to regulating and keeping an eye on private industry, it's regulations which help the agencies do their job. As you can imagine, since regulations are supposed to reign in and check corporate behavior, the more extreme elements of the private sector don't like regulations. So the phrase "deregulation" grows out of efforts by private industry to rid themselve of these regulations so they can make decisions without significant government oversight. Fewer regulations means more profits and corporate autonomy. The idea is to allow businesses to make money and service the public while at the same time allow the government agencies regulate their behavior in the interest of public health, safety, welfare, education, etc.

With that in mind, The New York Times today had the following story:

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats.

The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The first parapragh of the story says it all: the President, through his flunkies, will have more influence over rules governing health, safety and the like. He wants to do this by having a political appointee supervising the regulatory process, particularly concerning the environment and workplace safety, two areas that affect us all. This is unheard of. Why have a political appointee supervise the rules and regulations that govern our lives? Probably so that the administration can work around laws and statutes and answer to the needs of his corporate base. There is no other reason. Political hacks are not needed in drafting and supervising regulations; experts are needed.

We know that the President's cozy relationship with big business is substantially affecting policies and government decisionmaking. Corporate lobbyists are helping to write laws that benefit them and big campaign donors get their way in general. Democrats are guilty of this also, but the general view is that Republicans are worse.

There has not been much discussion about this issue online today (but a good analysis is here), and the blogosphere has pretty much ignored it, but there is no issue more important than this. This new directive brings us closer to corporate-ocracy. The health and safety consequences will be felt for years to come.