Posted on 11/17/2010 11:12:52 AM PST by red meat conservative
If there is anything that is clear from the outcome of the elections, it is that we have barely changed the Senate. Yes, we have gained some seats and moved some Republican open seats to the right for the 112th congress. However, there are still many Republicans that remain in the Senate who have shown no signs of changing their big government tendencies. Today, 16 Republicans joined every Democrat (except Ben Nelson, who is obviously pandering to keep his seat) to invoke cloture on the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510). Aside for the fact that this bill will add more layers of bureaucracy and expenses to the FDA and DOA, it will also burden food producers with more onerous regulations and kill jobs. There is no evidence that this will improve the safety of our food, which is already the safest in the world. As Tom Coburn so aptly explained:
"Fixing the real problems is about making the bureaucracy work right, not adding more layers and rules and bureaucracy," Coburn said. "I want us to have food safety, but for every dollar additionally spent, how much can you really improve? We have the safest food in the world, but you can't get to 100 percent. So at what point do you stop spending additional dollars? It's like homeland security. Can we ever spend enough money to be absolutely sure nothing happens? No, we can't."
Here is the list of Obama's Republicans:
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Enzi (R-WY) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Johanns (R-NE) LeMieux (R-FL) Lugar (R-IN) Snowe (R-ME) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH)
I know that some of them will say that this bill is good policy. After all, who wouldn't want to throw money into food safety? But herein lies the problem. Almost every egregious power grab that passes congress has some real or perceived minuscule ancillary benefit contained in the bill. Maybe on some small scale the Sarbanes-Oxley bill encouraged financial transparency in corporations, but it turned out to be a job killing boot on the neck of small and mid-sized businesses. The same thing is true for the food police bill. Even Montana Democrat Jon Tester said, "It's going to put a nail in the coffin of our family food producers." Incidentally, like a good Reid puppy, he voted for cloture on the bill.
The bottom line is that if Republicans don't have the courage to oppose this sort of legislation, do you really think that they will reform the entitlement state?
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY)
These guys get more than one vote now?
This is going on and Rush is talking about Dancing with Stars. Snerdley, you lurk here. Get your boss back on the ball!!!
Make these RINO’s famous around the next election cycle.
2 Republicans are counted twice so it’s not 16 Republicans but it’s still 14 too many!!!!!
Guess they think they won’t have to worry about us until 2012...not only did dems not get the message on 11/2 - neither did these Republicans.
I wrote to Mr. Burr to ask him to withdraw his support.
I am tired of these legislative piles of crap with a few cherries on top and the proponents all go “OOO, cherries!”
I told Mr Burr just that too.
I want these people to just go home.
BOTH Tennessee Senators...conservatives have no representation, apparently...
Woops, my bad. 14 it is.
Correspondingly, more regulations and layers that are added tend to make the violations (from those who figure out how to game the system) expansively egregarious.
Hey, thought you might be interested in this. Both our Senators voted against it, thank goodness. I wonder how much pressure it took to get them to change their vote? I had about 100 friends calling all morning.
—bflr—
Both GA senators were co-sponsors of this bill, yet they are not on the list? I called both this AM and was assured this was not big government nanny statism and in no way would it effect agriculture.(after a GA resident was fined $5000 for growing too many vegetables in his garden) I asked if this was one we would have to pass to find out what’s in it. They promised no.
Why do people on this site keep talking about Thune as a possible presidential candidate? From this vote it seems he is about as conservative as Romney or Pawlenty. By the company he keeps in this vote, he’s not conservative at all.
According to this they voted against it
So what is going on?
No, ALL 3 Tennessee Senators!
Seriously, though, it's obvious that Lamar and Bob still don't get it. We will have to make it clearer for them.
—thanks —wondered how long it would take somebody else to figure that out—
I see my RINO Senator Lugar shows himself again. I admit that I voted for him in the past, but now he’s just getting senile.
Can we demand a competency hearing for that idiot? He’s been laboring under the delusion that he’s a conservative for far too many years!
He has been worse that Bayh at times.
BTW, your list of Obama supporters on your home page is impressive.
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