Food Safety Act rescued from defeat, headed for passage

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last week when Sen. John McCain was yucking it up on the Senate floor about killing the omnibus spending bill, ostensibly because it contained "budget-busting" earmarks (actually less than 1% of the omnibus spending bill), much of the mainstream media's infatuation with this bogus earmarks crusade over the years led them to fail to report entirely the true motivation for blocking the omnibus spending bill — it included funding for the implementation of the new health-care and financial-regulatory laws.

Oh, and it also included the provisions of the Food Safety Act passed by the House. We can't have all that "guvmint" regulation, now can we? The media is so damn blind.

Luckily, at least the Food Safety Act has been rescued as a stand-alone bill. ABC News reports:

In an unexpected move, the Senate [on Monday] passed a sweeping food safety bill by unanimous consent, sending the bill back for a vote in the House before it will move on to President Obama’s desk.

“Very very important for our country,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this evening on the Senate floor. “Perfect legislation? No. But a broad broad step in the right direction. We haven’t done anything in this regard for more than a hundred years for our country. With all the changes in processing food, it’s so very important. I’ve spoken to the Speaker tonight and this will pass the House when they come back Monday night or Tuesday.”

The surprising development is only the latest bizarre twist for the measure. Just a few days ago the food safety bill was seen as dead on Capitol Hill, but the Senate this weekend modified it to resolve a revenue technicality and managed to pass it.

Rick Perlstein coined a phrase to capture this anti-regulatory conservative ideology: "E. Coli Conservatism."

UPDATE: Huh! Huh! What did I tell you? Continuing resolution sets up health insurance, financial reform fights for spring:

This morning the continuing resolution to fund the government until March 4, 2010 passed its first hurdle, cloture, 82-14. Good news, right? We avoided a government shutdown. Except:

WASHINGTON—A Senate deal to fund the federal government until early March doesn't include money to enact the health-care overhaul or stepped up regulation of Wall Street, boosting Republican efforts to curb key elements of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda….

Congressional Republicans have said they will try to defund enactment of the health-care law's least popular provisions, particularly Internal Revenue Service efforts to enforce the requirement that most Americans carry health insurance.

Republicans were also looking at cutting funds for the law's expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor, and for subsidies to offset the cost of buying insurance for lower earners. Cuts were also being weighed for a new board that will recommend Medicare spending reductions and for parts of the law arguably tied to coverage of abortion services….

The media would have you believe it was all about earmarks — damn blind fools.