Free Republic

Poke and Sniff: A Lesson from 1906In 1906, Upton Sinclair came out with his book The Jungle, and it shocked the nation by documenting the horror of the meat-packing industry. People were being boiled in vats and sent to larders. Rat waste was mixed with meat. And so on.As a result, the Federal Meat Inspection Act passed Congress, and consumers were saved from ghastly diseases. The lesson is that government is essential to stop enterprise from poisoning us with its food.To some extent, this mythology accounts for the wide support for government’s involvement in stopping disease spread today, including Covid...

Senate lawmakers voted Wednesday to prevent the Obama administration from making painful sequester-tied cuts to military tuition assistance as well as meat and poultry inspectors. The votes, which came in the form of amendments to a spending bill, marked the first by Congress aimed at easing the impact of the sequester. A number of lawmakers have complained the administration is making the automatic budget cuts more painful than they need to be with its budget decisions. The first amendment approved by the Senate Wednesday was pushed by Sens. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and would restore tuition assistance...

Salmonella outbreaks. E. coli outbreaks. Millions of dollars in economic losses. These are among the scenarios the Obama administration warned about last month as it claimed the sequester would force the U.S. Department of Agriculture to furlough meat inspectors. But while the administration prepares to take that step, it continues to pursue a "partnership" with the Mexican government to "raise awareness" about food stamps among immigrants from that country. When a top Senate Republican proposed cutting off funds for that program last week -- in the form of an amendment to a budget resolution -- Democrats on the Budget Committee...

On Friday, the White House warned that federal spending cuts could force the US meat industry to shut down for two weeks or longer. Spending cuts set to take effect on March 1 may lead to the two week furlough of every US meat and poultry inspector. Without inspectors, the industry would be shut down. Meatpackers and processors are not allowed to ship beef, pork, lamb and poultry without an Agricultural Department inspection seal. They also warned that the cuts could lead to effects on everyday life, while meatpackers said it would likely devastate the industry. The "fiscal cliff" has...