Here’s the next installment from the folks who brought you deregulation on Wall Street:
“The Bush administration has abruptly halted a government program that tests the levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and field crops, arguing that the $8 million-a-year program is too expensive—a decision critics say could make it harder to protect consumers from toxins in their food.” (Stephen J. Hedges, Chicago Tribune, September 27, 2008)
Eight million dollars. We spend that much every 30 minutes in Iraq, most of that on Uncle Sam’s credit card. And now the President is pleading for us to spend 100,000 times that much, again by borrowing it, for an unconditional bailout of businesses who for years were in denial about the inevitable result of loaning money to people who were predictably bad at paying it back.
My representative Jay Inslee voted “No” on the Wall Street bailout. We’re told that if we don’t do SOMETHING, there will be disaster. But I have a feeling that we could have disaster regardless of what we do, and especially if the SOMETHING we do is as knee-jerk as the current proposals being considered in Congress.
Yes, let’s do something. Let’s steer our economy away from this model we’ve been following for the past 30 years, which holds that money can magically grow like mold in a petri dish, devoid of any value other than numbers on paper. Let’s manufacture things again. Let’s invest in our infrastructure. Let’s educate our children. Let’s invent things by doing basic research that is not tied to quarterly profits. Let’s keep our next generation healthy. Let’s grow our own food - nutritious and non-poisonous food.
We spoke to our grandkids last night. They are healthy and, of course, exceptionally bright. My daughter-in-law is an LPN, and my stepson is a nursing assistant, working his way through school to become an RN. They don’t make a lot of money, but they have been very smart with what they have. They have not overextended themselves financially. They own a nice home on a large lot, which they can afford. To save some extra money, they dropped their TV cable, and somehow survived. They drive older cars. My stepson is also a Gulf War Veteran, who has thankfully avoided any hint of Gulf War Syndrome. They’ve done a lot of things right. They will probably weather this financial storm well. There are a lot of people like them, who haven’t bought McMansions and gas-guzzlers, and who are trusting their representatives to use their tax dollars judiciously, to fund infrastructure so they can get to work, to provide law enforcement so they can be safe - and, oh, yes, to keep agrobusiness from poisoning their food.
But without the USDA program, how will we know our food is not laden with pesticides? If we follow the purest free market model, we will know when people - children - become sick, and perhaps die. Then people won’t buy that brand any more. TA DA! Problem solved. But somehow I don’t think that detecting pesticides and contaminants in food using a body count would appeal to even the most hard-line, well-heeled Free Market economists. This is not a problem they can buy their way out of by living in a gated community, or sending their kids to a private school. They are not insulated from the effects of Bush's decision to cut the USDA program, unless they grow their own food, and never eat anywhere but at home. (Perhaps they could hire food tasters - Bush could add that to his "jobs created" list.)
The eight million dollars we might save by cutting this program could cost us much more in the end. This USDA program was set up in the 1980s after the Alar apple scare. There are those who would argue that despite being identified as a possible carcinogen, there was no hard evidence that Alar was actually a health risk. We may never know, because thankfully the experiment was cut short. Now the President is asking me to enroll my grandchildren in an updated version of that same experiment, to see how long we’ll be able to eat in ignorance this time and not suffer deleterious consequences. But Bush and his buddies have gotten things wrong a staggering number of times in the past eight years, often with costly and deadly results. So I’m writing my Congressional delegation to tell them that if my country does not have eight million to protect my grandchildren, then I don’t have 700 billion for the geniuses on Wall Street who couldn’t see this crash coming despite years of warnings from common folk like me. And if the economy takes a nose dive as a result - well, I'd rather be eating beans than Alar.
“The Bush administration has abruptly halted a government program that tests the levels of pesticides in fruits, vegetables and field crops, arguing that the $8 million-a-year program is too expensive—a decision critics say could make it harder to protect consumers from toxins in their food.” (Stephen J. Hedges, Chicago Tribune, September 27, 2008)
Eight million dollars. We spend that much every 30 minutes in Iraq, most of that on Uncle Sam’s credit card. And now the President is pleading for us to spend 100,000 times that much, again by borrowing it, for an unconditional bailout of businesses who for years were in denial about the inevitable result of loaning money to people who were predictably bad at paying it back.
My representative Jay Inslee voted “No” on the Wall Street bailout. We’re told that if we don’t do SOMETHING, there will be disaster. But I have a feeling that we could have disaster regardless of what we do, and especially if the SOMETHING we do is as knee-jerk as the current proposals being considered in Congress.
Yes, let’s do something. Let’s steer our economy away from this model we’ve been following for the past 30 years, which holds that money can magically grow like mold in a petri dish, devoid of any value other than numbers on paper. Let’s manufacture things again. Let’s invest in our infrastructure. Let’s educate our children. Let’s invent things by doing basic research that is not tied to quarterly profits. Let’s keep our next generation healthy. Let’s grow our own food - nutritious and non-poisonous food.
We spoke to our grandkids last night. They are healthy and, of course, exceptionally bright. My daughter-in-law is an LPN, and my stepson is a nursing assistant, working his way through school to become an RN. They don’t make a lot of money, but they have been very smart with what they have. They have not overextended themselves financially. They own a nice home on a large lot, which they can afford. To save some extra money, they dropped their TV cable, and somehow survived. They drive older cars. My stepson is also a Gulf War Veteran, who has thankfully avoided any hint of Gulf War Syndrome. They’ve done a lot of things right. They will probably weather this financial storm well. There are a lot of people like them, who haven’t bought McMansions and gas-guzzlers, and who are trusting their representatives to use their tax dollars judiciously, to fund infrastructure so they can get to work, to provide law enforcement so they can be safe - and, oh, yes, to keep agrobusiness from poisoning their food.
But without the USDA program, how will we know our food is not laden with pesticides? If we follow the purest free market model, we will know when people - children - become sick, and perhaps die. Then people won’t buy that brand any more. TA DA! Problem solved. But somehow I don’t think that detecting pesticides and contaminants in food using a body count would appeal to even the most hard-line, well-heeled Free Market economists. This is not a problem they can buy their way out of by living in a gated community, or sending their kids to a private school. They are not insulated from the effects of Bush's decision to cut the USDA program, unless they grow their own food, and never eat anywhere but at home. (Perhaps they could hire food tasters - Bush could add that to his "jobs created" list.)
The eight million dollars we might save by cutting this program could cost us much more in the end. This USDA program was set up in the 1980s after the Alar apple scare. There are those who would argue that despite being identified as a possible carcinogen, there was no hard evidence that Alar was actually a health risk. We may never know, because thankfully the experiment was cut short. Now the President is asking me to enroll my grandchildren in an updated version of that same experiment, to see how long we’ll be able to eat in ignorance this time and not suffer deleterious consequences. But Bush and his buddies have gotten things wrong a staggering number of times in the past eight years, often with costly and deadly results. So I’m writing my Congressional delegation to tell them that if my country does not have eight million to protect my grandchildren, then I don’t have 700 billion for the geniuses on Wall Street who couldn’t see this crash coming despite years of warnings from common folk like me. And if the economy takes a nose dive as a result - well, I'd rather be eating beans than Alar.
