From Obamacare To Obamasnare : The Food Safety And Modernization Act
72Uh-Oh!
The Manchurian President has done it again. No bill in American history was more dangerous than SB 510, The Food Safety And Modernization Act...and his Zombies slipped it right through both houses of Congress. Right before Christmas. In a Crippled Quacker session, no less.
Did those Republicans who voted in favor of government-controlled food bother to read the bill? Does Kate Gosselin avoid Sarah Palin's woods?
Do I need to ask?
Okay. When you make a statement describing any given piece of legislation as the "most dangerous in history", you'd best have some ammunition to back up that claim...right? Oh, absolutely. So let's get to it. What follows is from the bill's Table of Contents (the first of 4 Titles):
TITLE I--IMPROVING CAPACITY TO PREVENT FOOD SAFETY PROBLEMS
Sec. 101. Inspections of records.
Sec. 102. Registration of food facilities.
Sec. 103. Hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls.
Sec. 104. Performance standards.
Sec. 105. Standards for produce safety.
Sec. 106. Protection against intentional adulteration.
Sec. 107. Authority to collect fees.
Sec. 108. National agriculture and food defense strategy.
Sec. 109. Food and Agriculture Coordinating Councils.
Sec. 110. Building domestic capacity.
Sec. 111. Sanitary transportation of food.
Sec. 112. Food allergy and anaphylaxis management.
Sec. 113. New dietary ingredients.
Sec. 114. Requirement for guidance relating to post harvest processing of raw oysters.
Sec. 115. Port shopping.
Sec. 116. Alcohol-related facilities.
There are a few ultra-obvious things going on here. First and foremost, this is not about food safety any more than Obamacare is about helping you stay healthy. It's a power grab, pure and simple...and it's both huge and deadly. We spend about one tenth of our so-called disposable income on food in this country--somewhat less than the 1/6 going out for health care--but having the federal government in control of your groceries is wa-ay worse than having it own the doctors. With no doctors, some people will die. With no food, everybody dies.
Starvation trumps cancer every time.
Obviously, there's no way to fully analyze a large bill in a single-page hub. How be, then, we take a quick scan of just one of those 16 Sections listed under Title I. Say...Section 107. Authority to collect fees. And make no mistake: "Fees" = Taxes, i.e. redistribution of income, i.e. stealing your hard earned cash.
Every domestic facility will have to pay "fees" to be inspected. Got that? If you run a produce packing plant (or any other food-related facility), you pay the feds to harrass you. Sound fun? Do you believe that money goes back to the taxpayers who pay the inspectors' salaries? Huh? Do ya?
Every U.S. Agent of a foreign food facility exporting food to the U.S. will have to pay similar inspection fees.
Inspections must be annual (but may be more frequent), and there will be a fee for every time an inspector walks in your doors. Sort of like--no, exactly like the protection rackets run by organized crime (often called "government") since time immemorial.
You even to get to pay large enough fees to cover the administrative costs of collecting the fees.
Fortunately. no matter how large your facility may become in your wildest excess of commercial success, there is a cap. You can't be charged more than that in any single fiscal year, and the cap is quite reasonable--in Obamanomics terms, anyway--just $25,000,000.
Yep. Only a 25 measly mil.
Having fun yet?
The Need To Read
Here's a link if you feel the need to read about Obamasnare. There are even greater horrors that await; please don't tackle this until or unless you feel up to having a Stephen King moment. As either a tease or a warning (take your pick), consider the following topics (also taken from the SB 510 Table of Contents):
Sec. 204. Enhancing tracking and tracing of food and recordkeeping.
Sec. 205. Surveillance.
Sec. 207. Administrative detention of food.
Sec. 211. Improving the reportable food registry.
Sec. 401. Funding for food safety. (More taxes.)
Sec. 116. Alcohol-related facilities. (There goes the bar!)
It's really quite remarkable that SB 510 managed to fly out under the radar without so much as ruffling feathers in the Lame Duck session. In fact, it brings to mind the way a pair of coyotes will hunt prairie dogs. One devil dog will meander/trot casually out in front of the sentinel rodent at some distance, close enough to hold the critter's attention but not close enough to scare the little guy back down its hole. While that's going on, the canine's mate will sneak in behind the unsuspecting meal, and...CHOMP!!
Food Safety And Modernization Act, my left foot. This thing is Obamasnare all the way. Precisely like Obamacare, it must be repealed.
Remember in November 2012...and monitor the whooptedo out of Congress in the meantime.
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Exactly, Eovery. It really does appear to have slipped under the radar like a Stealth bomber. Trouble is, this particular Stealth craft is packing the equivalent of nuclear heat aimed for the heartland with a pilot on crack cocaine.
ghostie,
merry christmas or shou;ld i say feliz navidad in the North mexican territory of arizona
TH
Either one will do, Tom. Merry Christmas back atcha. (My Spanish is atrocious except for a few swear words.)
Although to get to the truly NORTH Mexican part, you kinda gotta get up at least as far as Utah....
I hope we can de-fund all these horrors when Congress reconvenes. Big Brother abounds and I am sick of it. Living in the desert is beginning to sound very appealing. Merry Christmas!
Indeed. During the Lame Duck session, I wound up wishing for a few dozen bottles of Cold Duck (actually put a dent in a stucco kitchen wall with a Cold Duck cork one fine Christmas season, back in the day). It's not been easy just trying to keep up with all the "stuff" they've been slapping up on the wall.
When I first learned of this "control freak bill" a few months ago, one of the initial things which really got to me is the prohibition to grow your own food, preventing you from even growing tomatoes in a garden plot on your own land. The government has NO RIGHT to do any of this, as we all know, so what they are trying to do in any of the things they have done in the past two years is make us more like a Nazi run country. When I learned of this earlier in the year, I started signing petitions, wrote a few hubs on this subject too, but because the writings were filled with warnings, people chose to ignore insteat of act.
Of course, given the lack of integrity of the loon and his compadres, I do not wonder at this at all. The total thing to have happened at Christmas time, I feel is just another way to steal each persons joy in the season....to concentrate on the horror they are performing up there. Even tho distinctly unhappy about the above events, I fear I am going to choose to try not to think about them until this season is over. And Ghost, I'm with ya all the way. If I drank, it woulda been several pitcher of margaritas later....but what would that have solved.
THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN for a truly informative hub. voted up and useful.
Haven't read the bill, but, the number $25,000,000,000 is twenty five billion.
Nevertheless, currently folks who sell bad food go out of business quickly, no regulation required. This bill will allow those same businesses to claim the government didn't do it's job (which will be quite likely, yet again), and cause taxpayers to pay for more government investigators and legal system to collect fines instead of flat out letting them go out of business.
Instead of setting up a government paid enforcement infrastructures, they could simply support the consumers putting in place openly available interactive web-sites that rate food suppliers on basis of complaints, nutritional value, lawsuits, or whatever criteria they think is important.
Once again, the Ghost comes through with a well-written and presented bit of research and information.
"From Obamacare to Obamasnare-The Food Safety And Modernization Act."
The hub is highly critical yet proves the freedomof expression. This is the grace of Democratic Discipline. The proper forum for discussion and debate is the legislature but even after the Act is passed the expression on pros and cons shows the awarreness of the rights of the peole by the people and if it is with sincerety for the people then certainly the welfare and well being process improves and advances.
Reasons from both sides are always of great value.
Once Hadrat `Umar stood to address the Friday Gathering and he was wearing a shirt of the cloth which had come to his share by equal distribution with which a shirt could not be tailored. An audience stood up and asked Hadrat `Umar how he managed to have tailored this shirt which was not sufficient to make it full shirt? Hadrat `Umar pointd towards his son who stood up and clarified that the cloth which had come to his share was given by him to his father so that he may get a shirt tailored for him. The objector was satisfied and the Friday Address proceeded on. hadrat umar was the Second Caliph of Islamic state.
Freedom of expression is a right and every right is for availing it with no hindrance but there should be neither disrespect, nor mockery, nor abuse,nor exploitation. Democracy flourishes in a parliamentary and respectful atmosphere and dialogue. Dissenting view is not to be hated. It may show its importance at a later stage and the competent legislatures have every right ot consider and reconsider any matter.
May God bless all who follow guidance.
The hub is useful and beautiful.
WMH, I'm not sure about the garden prohibition. That is, I didn't see that in the actual text...though there's a lot I had to scan if this hub were to be published prior to Valentine's Day.
There IS a provision monitoring/inspecting/etc. FARMS except for produce that will be consumed ON the farm.
Jim, thanks for catching that. I've now gone back and edited out a few zeroes--probably some of the same zeroes who let this bill slip through so easily.
I really like your idea of simply setting up an online rating service for food quality and safety. Something easily accessible like that would handle the issue beautifully at a very nominal cost--and, as you say, with lightning rapidity. Bravo!
Munirahmadmughal, thanks for commenting--and for the compliments. May the blessings be.
um not to burst your bubble or anything but did you read section 107??
the fees are only for re inspection costs. so if a factory or facility gets the inspection right the first time (which is the intent since we want preventative measures) then there are no fees. If they dont meet standards then they have to pay. So essentially factories are encouraged to meet standards so they dont pay. just thought you might wanna read that section.
Thanks, Chris.
Yes, I did read Section 107. However, my interpretation of the likely impact of this section does vary considerably from yours. You statement is correct on the surface, but:
1. I've yet to see or hear of a federal inspection of any kind of facility from an underground to a meat processing plant that didn't turn up numerous violations on an initial inspection. Hence, (in my opinion), virtually everyone will be facing reinspections and their associated fees.
2. The system itself incentivizes inspectors to find violations in order to (a) justify their own jobs and (b) expand the power base of the bureaucracy.
Just the way it is.
Thanks for commenting.
eovery 17 months ago
This appears to be a bill that everyone has just let slide. I do not know why there isn't more heard about this.
Keep on hubbing!