Monday, December 20, 2010

Food "Safety" Bill Passed by Lame Duck Perfidy

Arrgghhh."In Sunday-evening surprise, Senate passes food safety legislation":
The Senate unexpectedly approved food safety legislation by voice vote Sunday evening, rescuing a bill that floated in limbo for weeks because of a clerical error.
Attempts like this are to be expected by lame duck legislators, a concept that in this day and age can and needs to be done away with. The House and Senate should be permanently closed before election day and the new House and Senate then seated within a week or two of the election.

Herein lies the perfidy:
Democrats first attempted to attach the food safety bill to the two-and-a-half-month spending measure but Republicans balked because they wanted to keep that measure clean, according to Senate aides.

Republicans, however, later agreed to pass it by voice vote
Why bother separating the two bills if you're going to approve both of them? I've yet to find an explanation for this separation. It make no sense to me, unless they are anticipating a second vote whereby they can vote against one or the other bill, yet my understanding is that the food bill goes to the President if (when) the House passes it.

By this the current Senate Republicans have promulgated further intrusion of government regulation into private affairs thus showing themselves to be no different than Democrats in this regard. A pox on their house.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Food "Safety" Bill Likely DOA

From Hot Air and Roll Call:
By pre-empting the House’s tax-writing authority, Senate Democrats appear to have touched off a power struggle with members of their own party in the House. The Senate passed the bill Tuesday, sending it to the House, but House Democrats are expected to use a procedure known as “blue slipping” to block the bill, according to House and Senate GOP aides
...
Now what? The House will either block the bill entirely or pass its own version of it. The latter option will mean that Reid will have to hold a vote to reopen debate on the bill, and will need unanimous consent to limit that debate...Reid can forget about unanimous consent.
A bad bill likely dead? Good!
As a result of Democrat infighting? Better!
May lock up a lame duck Democrat Congress for the rest of the session? Best!

Christian Song for Hannukkah