The Trib has an excellent article about the flip side of funding sunset dates. Many types of state and federal funding comes with sunset dates. Here, the Illinois state legislature is angling to impose sunset dates on funding that was not there at the time of granting.

Recently, I've seen a series of purchases by local governments that were rushed due to sunset dates. This has led to some unfortunate purchasing decisions. In essence, having to rush the purchase decision led to buying something that was unusable.

From the grantor side, sunset dates ensure that the money will actually be used and not languish. However, unreasonable dates can lead to catestrophic results.

This example in Chicago is a bad precedent. In essence, there was no initial sunset date -- now there is. This is tantamount to merely killing the appropriation after it has been awarded.