President Bush took the opportunity while Congress was in recess to appoint controversial nominee Thomas Dorr as undersecretary of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which will allow him to serve for a year without Senate confirmation. Recess appointments are not uncommon for contentious nominees that lack bipartisan support when the Senate and executive branch are controlled by opposing parties. Yet President Bush went even further than most presidents in appointing Dorr, because Dorr did not even have the support of fellow Republicans.

Over the objections of privacy advocates, the Bush administration on August 14 issued new standards on the handling of patient medical records, replacing protections adopted in the last month of the Clinton administration that were strongly opposed by HMOs, insurance companies, and pharmaceuticals.

As we often try to remember on these pages, the federal budget, which may superficially appear to be merely a convoluted collection of insignificant numbers, is actually the decoder ring to a better understanding of our country’s real priorities -- since not a lot happens to improve a problem without spending money, the federal budget reveals which problems our country’s policy makers are working to improve. Even less understood and farther removed from our daily lives are the intricacies of federal budget rules. These rules, which govern how the House and Senate must work to craft the country’s annual budget, are in place to ensure that sufficient time is given to debating and developing the a course for tackling the nation’s problems.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced legislation (H.R. 5292) last week that seeks to ensure federal contractors follow the law by creating a centralized database on actions taken against them, including government lawsuits, consent decrees, and administrative agreements. The legislation, which is co-sponsored by Reps. Stephen Horn (R-CA) and Jim Turner (D-TX), follows a report by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), as well as articles in U.S. News & World Report and Mother Jones, which demonstrated that many of the largest federal contractors are also major league lawbreakers.