Well, now I'm back too. And annoyed. Item the first:
CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 28 -- President Bush's stewardship of the nation's food supply was attacked Sunday by Democratic presidential candidates who charged that the case of mad cow disease in a Washington state Holstein could have been discovered earlier if the administration had not coddled the livestock industry.
I hesitate to use the term "stewardship" with respect to any of President Bush's recent activities, but his stewardship over the regulations governing the livestock industry has been fine. Bush rightly rejected regulations that would have required meatpackers to put country-of-origin labels on their products. The proposed regulations, which managed to be both costly and useless, are being trumpeted by Gephardt and others as Bush's primary failing.
Moreover, the FDA has been considering new regulations targeting mad cow disease, a threat that (as of yet) poses an unproven risk.
There's plenty of room to criticize the FDA for some episodes of lax enforcement, but a single case a mad cow disease among millions of head of US cattle is hardly cause to indict the Bush administration.
Particularly since this particular infected cow may be a Canadian import. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Oh, Canada! Why do you hurt us so?
None of this is to imply that we can all go back to business as usual. The cattle industry has been enjoying near-record prices (and profits) in the wake of the discovery of mad cow disease in the Canadian herd, but that's not gonna last. International and domestic confidence in the US cattle industry has taken a significant hit, prices are starting to fall, and it won't be much longer before we start to see smaller producers going under.
To restore confidence in the livestock industry, we are going to have to strengthen the regulations governing the feed and care of cattle. (Thank you, Captain Obvious!) Kerry's got a decent, though costly, plan. It will surely cause some headache, and its more expensive components should whittled down. Increased regulation, however, will be cheaper than the alternative. Distinguishing between -- and, when forced, choosing -- the lesser of two evils is, after all, what good government is about. Bush needs to make a proposal of his own.
von
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