\nIt started with ideology. Hard-core American conservatives have long … wanted a restoration of the way America was \u201cup until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The late Milton Friedman … call[ed] for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. It was unnecessary, he argued: private companies would avoid taking risks with public health to safeguard their reputations and to avoid damaging class-action lawsuits. (Friedman, unlike almost every other conservative I can think of, viewed lawyers as the guardians of free-market capitalism.)<\/p>\n
Such hard-core opponents of regulation were once part of the political fringe, but with the rise of modern movement conservatism they moved into the corridors of power. They never had enough votes to abolish the F.D.A…, but they … did … deny… these agencies enough resources to do the job. For example,… the F.D.A. has … a substantially smaller work force now than … in 1994, the year Republicans took over Congress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Appointing food industry honchos as heads of regulatory agencies hasn’t hurt (the ideological cause), either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How did we get back to the point where people seriously worry about the safety of their food? (Well, except me — I always knew that raw tomatoes were dangerous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-drink","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20557,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/25\/unblogged-bits-fri-25-mar-11-1130.html","url_meta":{"origin":12243,"position":0},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Fri. 25-Mar-11 1130)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 25-Mar-11 11:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... G.E.\u2019s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether - NYTimes.com - As an extension of the discussion earlier this week about corporations and taxes. Looking at GE in particular shows areas where gameplaying with tax\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40475,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/07\/considering-impossible-economic-reforms-that-arent.html","url_meta":{"origin":12243,"position":1},"title":"Considering impossible economic reforms that aren't","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Jan-14 6:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I think it would be worthwhile having some debates over these, if only because we can actually point to real examples, inside our own country, that already exist. I'm not necessarily sold on any of them (a job guarantee, a universal basic income, a land value tax, a sovereign wealth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16954,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/23\/unblogged-bits-for-tue-23-mar-2010-901pm.html","url_meta":{"origin":12243,"position":2},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Tue, 23 Mar 2010, 9:01PM","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 23-Mar-10 6:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Matt Gertz: FoxNews.com's vet health hubbub - Standard fear-mongering much-ado from Fox. And that's Just in the First Friedman Unit! - And this is what the GOP wants to run against. Socialism!!!! - Money\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32231,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/17\/rip-dear-abby.html","url_meta":{"origin":12243,"position":3},"title":"RIP, Dear Abby","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Jan-13 1:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Abigail Van Buren (Pauline Friedman Phillips) has died. I always enjoyed her column better than her sister's. Embedded Link 'Dear Abby' advice columnist dies at age 94 MINNEAPOLIS\u2014Pauline Friedman Phillips, who as Dear Abby dispensed snappy, sometimes saucy advice on love, marriage and meddling mothers-in-law to millions of newspaper readers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38100,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/02\/the-failed-goal-of-shareholder-value.html","url_meta":{"origin":12243,"position":4},"title":"The Failed Goal of Shareholder Value","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Jul-13 6:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"What's the purpose of a corporation? \u00a0To make money for shareholders. \u00a0So summarized Milton Friedman in the 70s, eliminating a foundational element of actual capitalism and ushering in an era of Greed Being Good and the placation of short-term shareholder demands even at the cost of market, society, employees, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20269,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/19\/unblogged-bits-sat-19-feb-11-1630.html","url_meta":{"origin":12243,"position":5},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Sat. 19-Feb-11 1630)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 19-Feb-11 4:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... It's only national security Boykin Terrifies Dobson With Dire Warnings Of America's Pending Islamification - Eek! Eeeeeek! EEEEEEEEEEK!!! Harshest Critic Of DADT Repeal: No Indication Of Troops Leaving Services Over Policy Change - Changing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}