Return of the Salmonella Republicans - Remember the salmonella-infected tomatoes of 2008?

Return of the Salmonella Republicans
Jonathan Cohn
March 14, 2011

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/85186/salmonella-fda-budget-cut-republican

Remember the salmonella-infected tomatoes of 2008? How about the tainted peanut butter of 2007? Or the bad spinach of 2006? These outbreaks sickened thousands and cost the produce industry hundreds of millions. Yet somehow the Republican Party has forgotten about them.

How else to explain their posture on funding for the Food and Drug Administration? As part of their campaign to reduce federal spending, House Republicans want to reduce FDA food safety funding by $241 million for the duration of this fiscal year. As my friend and former colleague Suzy Khimm recently reported for Mother Jones, that would mean, among other things, furloughing inspectors and reducing examinations of imported food.

And that could be just the beginning of cutbacks at FDA. For next year’s budget, the Republicans have said they want to reduce discretionary spending to 2008 levels. According to calculations by David Plunkett, who is a staff attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, such a cut at FDA would likely force the agency to lay off 600 inspectors, actually reducing the force to slightly less than what it was in 2008. (I can’t vouch for those figures personally, but he extrapolated the figures based on official FDA budget justifications--and his method seems sensible.)
What makes this particularly troubling is that 2008 spending levels were clearly inadequate--even in 2008.

(more at link)
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/85186/salmonella-fda-budget-cut-republican

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Of all the cuts the Repub's are proposing this is ONE of the worst things they could do! Damn them!
:grr:

They are getting the government they deserve.

But WE all have to suffer with them.

Half the salmonella outbreaks in this country would not occur if people just showed common sense and the notion that things like chicken should not be in the fridge shelf above the lettuce. And washed their hands before they started cooking.

The larger industries that the FDA supposed oversees are allowed to pay off the FDA inspectors. While the smaller firms have gestapo-like raids on their businesses. Even if nothing they have done is wrong.

of all this ridiculous, teabaggy, rethuglican legislation and noxious memes. Not that we aren't already living in much of the results of a long takeover.

It would be a rather horrible, sci-fi dystopia, entitled: Life After Republicans. The movie, Brazil got close and, of course 1984 was very prophetic, but this flick would extrapolate on everything we are seeing now. In my vision, it looks exactly like hell on Earth.

feel more comfortable buying those products now than our own.
What does that say about the state of food safety in this country were people don't have confidence in the food?