In the Potemkin Village government of Dubya, there was, for all intents, no protection of the public’s food supply.
That will change, and change soon, according to this article in today’s Washington Post.
In his Saturday morning address:
President Obama announced new leadership and other changes today aimed at improving the safety of the U.S. food supply, declaring that shortcomings during the Bush administration created a “hazard to public health” that is “unacceptable.”
In his weekly address to the nation, Obama said he is creating a “Food Safety Working Group” to recommend ways to “upgrade our food safety laws for the 21st century.” The Agriculture Department is also moving ahead with a rule that stalled during the Bush administration to ban all diseased cattle from entering the food supply.
That’s right. Under George Bush, banning diseased cattle was just another example of not letting the free markets do their job.
As that unfettered socialist Barack Obama said today:
“There are certain things only a government can do. And one of those things is ensuring that the foods we eat, and the medicines we take, are safe and do not cause us harm.”
Can you imagine? No more tainted peanuts, no more diseased cattle? No wonder the scions of free enterprise are terrified. Fortunately, they can still send tainted baby formula to the Third World.
Oh, and for those who claim that Bush’s failure to protect the food supply are overstated:
Obama says in his address that the FDA was “underfunded and understaffed” during the Bush administration and that outbreaks from contaminated food have risen to 350 a year compared to 100 a year in the early 1990s. He also says approximately 95 percent of the nation’s 150,000 food processing plants go without inspections each year.
Obama has proposed an extra $1 billion in his 2010 budget for more inspectors, improved laboratories and other improvements at FDA.The president also highlighted his status as a parent in talking about food safety. “When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought about my 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches probably three times a week,” Obama says in his address. “No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch.”
Proof elections matter, indeed.