Eat Your (Subsidized) Peas

Mark Bittman of the Times has a simple notion to improve the American diet - tax bad foods and subsidize good ones.

He's a lib so some of the rhetoric is daft, but he does seem to grasp the issues:

Yet the food industry appears incapable of marketing healthier foods. And whether its leaders are confused or just stalling doesn’t matter, because the fixes are not really their problem. Their mission is not public health but profit, so they’ll continue to sell the health-damaging food that’s most profitable, until the market or another force skews things otherwise. That “other force” should be the federal government, fulfilling its role as an agent of the public good and establishing a bold national fix.

Well, the food industry is entirely capable of marketing healthier foods - believe it or not, people seem to prefer sweeter, saltier and fattier foods.  One might make an anaolgy to seat belts and air bags - manufacturers were entirely capable of making them, but gauged that consumers would balk at the price.

As to the notion that the "other force" should be the Feds, well, normally I favor smaller government and consumer sovereignty.  However, I am not a fanatic about it, and there are times when the sovereign, having demonstrated unfitness for office, forfeits the crown.

Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods, we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyperprocessed snacks. The resulting income should be earmarked for a program that encourages a sound diet for Americans by making healthy food more affordable and widely available.

The average American consumes 44.7 gallons of soft drinks annually. (Although that includes diet sodas, it does not include noncarbonated sweetened beverages, which add up to at least 17 gallons a person per year.) Sweetened drinks could be taxed at 2 cents per ounce, so a six-pack of Pepsi would cost $1.44 more than it does now. An equivalent tax on fries might be 50 cents per serving; a quarter extra for a doughnut. (We have experts who can figure out how “bad” a food should be to qualify, and what the rate should be; right now they’re busy calculating ethanol subsidies. Diet sodas would not be taxed.)

Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually. That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit.

We could sell those staples cheap — let’s say for 50 cents a pound — and almost everywhere: drugstores, street corners, convenience stores, bodegas, supermarkets, liquor stores, even schools, libraries and other community centers.

He knows such a tax would be regressive but figures the subsidies would offset that.

Mr. Bittman finishes with a full lib fantasy:

Other ideas: We could convert refrigerated soda machines to vending machines that dispense grapes and carrots, as has already been done in Japan and Iowa. We could provide recipes, cooking lessons, even cookware for those who can’t afford it. Television public-service announcements could promote healthier eating. (Currently, 86 percent of food ads now seen by children are for foods high in sugar, fat or sodium.)

Money could be returned to communities for local spending on gyms, pools, jogging and bike trails; and for other activities at food distribution centers; for Meals on Wheels in those towns with a large elderly population, or for Head Start for those with more children; for supermarkets and farmers’ markets where needed. And more.

As long as these are unionized government jobs, Dems will be thrilled.  Meanwhile, back in reality, the WSJ was fascinating on the technical challenges of vending machines and fresh fruit.  And there is that pesky consumer again:

But even if vending machine companies have ironed out the technical issues involved in selling fruits and vegetables, they can have a hard time convincing people to buy the healthy stuff. In 2007, Spencer Cox, president of Vending Services Inc., started stocking a box of carrots, celery sticks and broccoli (with a tub of light ranch dressing) in the refrigerated machine at a telecommunications company. The human resources manager had requested it.

..."It went over like a turd in a punch bowl," says Mr. Cox, whose company has about 450 vending machines in the Des Moines area. About 80% of the new products went unsold and had to be thrown away. "The truth is, people ask for this, but just because they ask for this doesn't mean they're going to buy it."

I await the decision of the Obama Administration to supplement "Let's Move" with "Let's Tax and Subsidize".  The core of the idea would be good, but they would deliver a mess.

ERRATA:  Back in a post about the link between sugar and cancer I predicted that Coca-Cola today is what cigarettes were in the 50's.  And football, too - vast cultural shifts await!

BUT WHAT IS BAD?  Salt gets a passing mention in the Bittman piece (Hungary may tax it) and in my own post, but the science is at best ambiguous.  For my money, I would focus on the potassium/sodium ratio.

Comments

[Jane says obamasucks]

I think we should tax breathing. If we like your breath you get a refund, if not you turn over your pension fund.

[Extraneus]

Nice piece, Clarice.

The Budget Talks: Edge of the Rim of the Cusp

[Johnv2]

If you want less of something, tax it. Even the libs are beginning to get the message.

[Thomas Collins]

Anyone who thinks there is a lack of healthy food produced by the food industry is delusional. Nannies already use taxes to try to fulfill their bluenose fantasies. We should be rolling back the use of taxation as social policy, not expanding it.

[peter]

The food and dining section is about the only portion of the Times I can abide. Now the Times' liberal fascism has spread to the food section.

[carl]

>>>>there are times when the sovereign, having demonstrated unfitness for office, forfeits the crown.<<<<

That's a lot more applicable to the fed government than the average consumer. You want fruit nuts and squirrel food, fine. Why must you insist that I eat it as well? I don't demand that you pound back a bag of pork rinds (covered w/tabasco....oh yes..).

PS You can have my Little Debbie Peanutbutter Crunch bars when you pry them from my cold dead hand ( the soy sauce is in the other....).

[carl]

Hail Debbie, full of taste,
Blessed art thou among snack foods...

[Boatbuilder]

Because the proles are too stupid to know what is good for them, and the evil corporations want them to be fat and sick. Except in Cambridge, the Upper West Side, and San Francisco, where everyone is educated and life is perfect. And if the price of arugula goes up, the show trials will commence.

[Jane says obamasucks]

Capn' are you watching Geitner? Did he come across as badly to you as he did to me?

[Old Lurker]

Jane, I did not see him but to me the answer is still "yes".

[PineBaroness]

New Jersey already taxes junk food, candy and fast food. There is a 7% sales tax on those categories.....Unexpectedly, the rate of obesity in New jersey is just 1 percentage point lower than neighbor Delaware, which does not tax these items.

[Gmax]

I think we can the result of this nannystatism in the CFL versus incadescent light bulb experiment. Sales of CFL bulbs have not soared, and now Fred Upton is threatened with being thrown from office for foisting this little bit green madness upon us. The Government could not manage a two car funeral why should be expect that this command economy is not going to produce more left shoes than right shoes?

Form a standing army, print a common currency and then stay the hell out of the way. This is getting close to our last warning.

[Thomas Collins]

People complain that taxes are too complicated. The food and drink classifications that would have to be done to implement the prog fantasy taxes would make federal, state and local taxation even more complicated. Lobbyists will do well. For example, look for a lobbyists to be urging Congress that up to 7 grams of sugar per serving of tomato sauce should qualify for exemption from the to be enacted federal excise tax on Excessive Sugar Products. The Showdown at Gucci Gulch that accompanied the enactment of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 will be nothing compared to the lobbying that will go on in connection with a regime of excise taxes on non-nanny approved food and drink products.

[Thomas Collins]

The possibilities for further complicating the tax system are endless. How about an extra 2 percent earned income tax credit for low income families who buy skim milk and low sugar cereal? Social activists can then have a new activity, namely, bringing to low income people receipts documenting politically correct food purchases by low income families (in actuality, the food would have been purchased by the activists for their own consumption). Just think, here is a chance to increase the fraud that accompanbies the earned income tax credit program!

[hit and run]

You know what they say: "You can't spell 'Pigovian' without . . . Gov Pain

[Melinda Romanoff]

hit-

No comment on latest David Wu twists?

[Thomas Collins]

OK, I am going to play a thought game in the next couple of weeks. I am going to try to come up with the op ed writers I have read in my life who are even in Clarice's league as a op ed writer (noone tops her). I'll report the results in a couple of weeks (early odds have David Brooks not being on that list).

[Clarice]

We already are taxing Junk food in D.C. At least in grocery stores.

How do we decide what is good for us and what is bad for us. From insty today proof that the saltaphobia is unwarranted:
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN: It’s Time To End The War On Salt: The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science.
This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.

[Thomas Collins]

Mel, I think Wu should seek counseling from Rev. Jackson.

[steve]

Don't worry about consumers not liking the health food, the government will use its Kagan-bestowed powers to force people to buy and eat the foods the government deems appropriate.

They'll simply move to replace 'Recommended Daily Consumption' with 'MANDATORY Daily Consumption'.

[Clarice]

Ext, TC, thanks..Too kind.

[Melinda Romanoff]

Oooh, good one. I know Dodd's not too busy.

[Barry Dauphin]

Taxing "bad" food is another means to increase the obesity of government, to pay for even more nannies.

[Extraneus]

We have experts who can figure out how “bad” a food should be to qualify, and what the rate should be; right now they’re busy calculating ethanol subsidies.

Mr. Bittman is appears to be a Communist.

How about we install a government webcam in each room in his house, so we can all observe his lifestyle. We need to get a feel for whether he's the type of central planner we want in charge of what we do.

Does he eat "right" and work out regularly? Engage in any risky sex practices? How about his carbon footprint?

[BR]

That's it, that's the last straw.
St. Jane's Island, here we come!

[Captain Hate]

Capn' are you watching Geitner? Did he come across as badly to you as he did to me?

If he appeared to you to be a lying deceptive weasel incapable of giving a direct and honest response to a simple question, the answer is "Yes".

[Porchlight]

We have experts who can figure out how “bad” a food should be to qualify, and what the rate should be; right now they’re busy calculating ethanol subsidies.

Please. Do you think the same experts who calculate ethanol subsidies will be capable of devising sin taxes on junk food? Noooooooo! We will need to hire thousands more experts with special knowledge! We will probably need at least eight new agencies, all headed by friends of FLOTUS. Each agency will have a branch office in every state, and will also have massive outreach programs to all the schools. Local grocery store chains will also be targeted outreached.

[anduril]

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Police arrived at an island massacre about an hour and a half after a gunman first opened fire, slowed because they didn't have quick access to a helicopter and then couldn't find a boat to make their way to the scene just several hundred yards (meters) offshore. The assailant surrendered when police finally reached him, but 85 people died before that.

I have to say, in a country such as Norway, in which the population is scattered along an extremely long coastline broken up by fjords and steep mountains, it is surprising to me that they should not have had rapid access to both fast, specialized ships and helicopters.

[caro]

Watch out,Porch. You'll soon be weighing out legumes in your library. For 50 cents/lb.

[anduril]

Well, someone had to do it, and thank God it wasn't me: Blake Hounshell read[] through what appears to be the 1,518-page manifesto and handbook of the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Norwegian history.

The manifesto, bylined by someone calling himself Andrew Berwick, is entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" and was posted on Stormfront.org, a white supremacist website, and discovered by American blogger Kevin I. Slaughter. [UPDATE: Norwegian TV has confirmed that the author is indeed the Oslo shooter, according to the New York Times.] What did the Oslo killer want?

[anduril]

Just finished the bit on the Oslo nut/killer. It's worth a read. Demented, but this will be laid at the feet of conservatives.

[Chubby]

((I am going to try to come up with the op ed writers I have read in my life who are even in Clarice's league as a op ed writer ))

she really puts things together well, doesn't she?

[Ignatz]

--However, I am not a fanatic about it, and there are times when the sovereign, having demonstrated unfitness for office, forfeits the crown.--

The Constitution doesn't explicitly proscribe the national government from forcing us to eat what it chooses so people consuming what they prefer to eat rather than the dictates of busy-body, unbidden nannies properly overturns the American Revolution and places us once again at the mercy of a new sovereign. And if you don't believe that you're a fanatic?

No doubt there are a considerable number among us who may at times not wipe their asses properly, so TM no doubt would endorse the new Federal Ministry of Ass Wiping enter our homes and make necessary inspections to ensure our methods meet with the new sovereign's 1000 page ass wiping regulations.
And for those unfortunates who fail to meet standards they will be provided an ass wiping commissar to be billeted in their home, since the 3rd Amendment only mentions soldiers in peacetime, not ass wipe commissars when we're at war in every corner of the globe.

Sometimes I'm afraid squaredance isn't alarmist enough.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Hmmm.

you dumb shit
insane
your perverse and bigoted heart
your iron-brained reading
your lunatic fantasies.
your zealotry
your craziness
insane
anything remotely as nutty
such genuinely crazy purposes
your lunatic dreams
deranged fool

Yeah, pretty well says it.

[MarkO]

"this will be laid at the feet of conservatives."

Of course, and it has to appear to all fair-minded folk that I am entirely responsible for this. Don't work with me on this, okay?

[BR]

For those who have Anduril on their narcisolater, Charlie is quoting Anduril's public confession and auto-da-fé.

[Extraneus]

Click image for full size.

[boris]

By all means blame all woodwind musicians for what the Pied Piper did to Hamelin.

[Jane says obamasucks]

So the argument now is whether or not to save the country, or compromise.

The dems think compromise is the only way to go, and to hell with the country.

And bill daily has an anger management problem.

[MarkO]

"By all means blame all woodwind musicians."

There you go again. I'm the one, not Nixon.

[hit and run]

Ignatz:
so TM no doubt would endorse the new Federal Ministry of Ass Wiping enter our homes and make necessary inspections to ensure our methods meet with the new sovereign's 1000 page ass wiping regulations.

No Fecal Matter Left Behind!

[anduril]

1. I characterized the guy as "demented."

2. I said conservatives "will be" blamed, not that I personally blame conservatives.

Both points appear pretty unarguable to me, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if #2 turns out to be the case.

[anduril]

wsj:

Neighbors of Mr. Breivik in western Oslo described him as an unassuming man who seemed close to his mother, though few had little direct contact with him. "He was an ordinary guy who looked like anyone else," said Caroline Slåttli, a 22-year-old neighbor at the western Oslo apartment complex where he lived until recently.

Ms. Slåttli and other neighbors described Mr. Breivik's mother, Wenche Behring, as a sociable and chatty older woman who frequently praised and doted on her son. "I think they were really close," she said.

[BR]

From that great movie, "Who's Killing the Chefs of Europe":

[Captain Hate]

The dems think compromise is the only way to go, and to hell with the country.

I don't think that word means the same thing to them as it does to us. Pretty soon it has to dawn on that barely ambulatory dowager's hump from Nevada and the dago witch (or something that rhymes with it) from Californicate that the JEF offers them nothing. If they work their asses off to reach a "compromise" that the mendacious mulatto signs, he'll take all the credit for it while doing absolutely zip of the work. He being in office has been a disaster for the donks and they act too stupid to react accordingly.

And we're wondering about the sanity of one person in Norway?!?

[BR]

And a cigar for dessert

Courtesy, SRC - Smoker's Revolutionary Club

[Clarice]

Ramirez is the greatest cartoonist of all times..better even than Nast and Nasby. That the LAT let him go is a tribute to how awful their judgement is.

[Ignatz]

--I don't think that word means the same thing to them as it does to us.--

What it means to them, CH, is they go on an insane spending binge and expansion of the government with trillions in new spending, deficits and debt and, while still in total control of the congress and WH, extend the EVIL Bush tax cuts and then when they lose the house demand that a "balanced" approach to their insanity include massive new tax hikes.

It's as if the guy in Tennessee whose house burnt down because he didn't pay his fees last year had also set his own house on fire and was then whining about the lack of a "balanced" approach by the local FD.

[Ben Franklin]

Chuck Hagel on MTP;

"Vacuum of Leadership and courage....."

[Clarice]

I like Kaus' response on "balance" best..
"That’s like saying you can’t take a piss unless you’re taking a drink."

[Ben Franklin]

D K Goodwin;

"When, in our political dialogue did 'compromise' become a bad word?

[Clarice]

Well she would understand "compromise" wouldn't she, Having plagiarized so often and spent so much time sourcegreasing she certainly has compromised a great deal.

[Ben Franklin]

Gregory; "Does 'compromise, mean "Failure"?

[boris]

"When, in our political therapeutic dialogue did 'enable' become a bad word?"

boris

[Ben Franklin]

Hagel;" First, Democracy can only work in consensus"

[Ignatz]

--Hagel;" First, Democracy can only work in consensus"--

Nonsense.

[Ben Franklin]

Is that a question, Ig?

[Old Lurker]

Be proud of me. I sat beside Gregory on the plane from Nantucket to DC last week and made a point of pretending not to know who he was. I suspect (hope) it drove hime nuts.

[Barry Dauphin]

D K Goodwin:

When did plagiarism become a bad word?

[Ben Franklin]

Our National Zeitgeist...........

Morning Quote: Alan Simpson

former Sen. Alan Simpson’s (R-WY) response, when asked by a TIME magazine interviewer if he would ever run for office again:

“Oh, hell, no. Now it's just sharp elbows, and instead of having a caucus where you sit down and say, “What are you going to do for your country?” you sit figuring out how to screw the other side.”

[Bruce]

Dieticians: "Eat Margarine instead of butter"

Heart: "arrggghhhhh"

[Clarice]

OL, what a great way to deal with guys like Gregory.

[boris]

"you sit figuring out how to screw the other side"

When, in our political dialogue did 'screw the other side' become a bad thing?

[Ben Franklin]

Andrea Mitchell;

"Why do we even have a debt ceiling?" Hubby must be nearby.

[Captain Hate]

Simpson gives a good insight into why the Party of Stoopid got its clock cleaned in 2006 & 2008. And why Duke & Duke will always have a TOP MAN vacancy for him to fill.

[hit and run]

“Oh, hell, no. Now it's just sharp elbows, and instead of having a caucus where you sit down and say, “What are you going to do for your country?” you sit figuring out how to screw the other side.”

Following The Arc From "Yes We Can" To "You Sit Thinking, 'You Know, Maybe We Should Just Screw The Other Side.' "

[Ben Franklin]

You are on a roll, this am, hit.

[Captain Hate]

Clarice, your status of Queen of the Morons @ AoS was enhanced with more praise in the Sunday Open Thread.

[henry]

Well Hit, the Tea Party made it too dangerous to screw the country anymore, ant technology made it too risky to screw the staff. The other side is all they have to screw these days.

[Janet]

Here is Mark Bittman -

"I've been an avid home cook since 1968, a journalist for nearly as long (longer if you count my high school yearbook!) and a professional food writer since 1980."

Who does this guy think he is? I totally agree with Extraneus - "Mr. Bittman is appears to be a Communist.

How about we install a government webcam in each room in his house, so we can all observe his lifestyle. We need to get a feel for whether he's the type of central planner we want in charge of what we do."

[Extraneus]

Has Doris read about the Missouri Compromise?

[Captain Hate]

Andrea Mitchell;

"Why do we even have a debt ceiling?"

The next stage is surely flatlining.

[Clarice]

Thanks, CH

[Janet]

A fitting quote -
"The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"
Frederick Bastiat

[Ben Franklin]

Couple of interesting links (no presumptions, please) on

Breivik;

ttp://islamversuseurope.blogspot.com/2011/07/anders-behring-breiviks-comments-about.html

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2011/07/the-political-ideas-of-anders-behring-breivik/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/cr_ident.htm

[MayBee]

Dear Mark Bittman: Shut up and cook.

[bio mom]

Be cheered. More Republican electorate in 2011.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2067/2012-electorate-partisan-affiliations-gop-gains-white-voters

[sbw]

"the dems think compromise is the only way to go"

Translation: Having hammered through outrageous overspending using questionable congressional tactics, compromise consists of continuing the outrage.

[sbw]

Liberty? We don't need no steekin' liberty!

[Captain Hate]

Dear Mark Bittman: Shut up and cook.

Troo dat; I have one of his cookbooks and gave the Hatettes his "How to Cook Everything" a while back.

[MayBee]

1. He shouldn't point to vending machines in Japan unless he knows what he's talking about. The Japanese have vending machines for everything, and they are everywhere. They are often outside Doctor's offices to augment the Doctor's income. Not having a vending machine around the corner in a neighbor's driveway was the thing my kids missed most when we left Tokyo.

2. In a world where mercury-laden lightbulbs are legislated as if they the environmentally-friendly option, we know there is no authority we can trust to make decisions about what is healthy

3.I have seen several articles lately claiming diet soda leads to obesity. It would be no time before they, and every other food, get thrown into the tax scheme.

4. Liberals are not helping poor people with their push for only "fresh fruits and vegetables" to be sold everywhere. Yes, fresh tastes better. But there is nothing wrong with frozen vegetables and fruits- plus they have the benefit of not going to waste. This fresh fruit in every store and school sounds like a giant food-wasting scheme to me.
Why not make a push to have a bag of peas in every freezer? You can whip them up in seconds and have a vegetable at every dinner.

3.

[hit and run]

Dear Mark Bittman: Shut up and cook make me a minimalist sammich.

[Ranger]

Via Instapundit this morning:

Floods of discontent

A couple of good bits:

"People have had enough of the drama," she says, explaining that President Obama's numerous debt-negotiations press conferences remind her of the boy who cried "Wolf!"

People voted for "No Drama Obama", the guy who said he would change the way "Washington Works", the guy who said he could get people in a room and make a deal. That guy doesn't seem to exist.

Green Vehicles, a California company, bragged about building "environmentally friendly" cars and creating jobs. Last week, it folded -- but not before the city of Salinas, Calif., handed it more than a half-million dollars. No cars ever rolled out of its plant, no jobs ever were created.

That is symbolic of how the Obama administration has handled job creation, through misdirected stimulus money and phantom "green" jobs.

This is why people no longer trust government. It is clear that it has simply become a means of stealing people's money via taxes, and handing it out to friends of those in government.

[Melinda Romanoff]

CH-

What? No Rombauer books?

[hit and run]

MayBee:
Liberals are not helping poor people with their push for only "fresh fruits and vegetables" to be sold everywhere.

"“Now we’re keeping, like, a bowl of fresh fruit in the house. But you have to go to the fruit stand a couple of times a week to keep that fruit fresh enough that a six-year-old—she’s not gonna eat the pruney grape, you know. At that point it’s, like, ‘Eww!’ She’s not gonna eat the brown banana or the shrivelledy-up things. It’s got to be fresh for them to want it. Who’s got time to go to the fruit stand? Who can afford it, first of all?”
--stuff Michelle Obama said (in 2008)

[hit and run]

Ranger:
the guy who said he could get people in a room and make a deal. That guy doesn't seem to exist.

"I don't think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful. I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle."
--stuff Obama said (in 2008)

[Elliott]

I think TC has it absolutely right, it will become a special pleading bonanza. After that, it will be litigated to within an inch of its life. (I believe California once had a snack food tax that became the subject of drawn out legal proceedings.)

[Janet]

But there is nothing wrong with frozen vegetables and fruits- plus they have the benefit of not going to waste.

Exactly right. Frozen & canned veggies may not have the desired texture...but for nutrients the canned & frozen outdid old "fresh" veggies according to an article in Consumer Reports a couple of years ago.

[Frau Klopapier]

Ass-wiping coaches are provided in Obamacare, Iggy.

[bgates]

his "How to Cook Everything"

I thought that name was familiar. That's a good book.

It occurs to me, though, that it has lots of recipes that call for "staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit", which he wants the government to make people eat, but no recipes for the popular foods he wants to ban.

Which means this whole column is just a front for Big Cookbook!

[Frau Klopapier]

According to TM's link, just make sure you eat enough sources of potassium to make the potassium-salt ratio right. (That was a long article, TM, but I stuck with it.)

As I've learned, too much potassium can lead to a serious health condition, too, and most of the really healthy foods can raise the levels quickly.

[Lesley]

Contessa Brewer: Do you have a degree in Snarkology?

Bgates: Yes ma'am. Highest honors.

Bgates, you are a treasure.

[Jane says obamasucks]

"People have had enough of the drama," she says, explaining that President Obama's numerous debt-negotiations press conferences remind her of the boy who cried "Wolf!"

I hope that is true, but to get there you have to be paying attention. Both Obama and Daley (and geitner) speak to the people as if not one of them is watching what is going on. They lie like rugs and get away with it.

[MarkO]

Why do we have Andrea Mitchell?

Compromise is what you seek just after you have had your ass kicked.

[MarkO]

By the way, what was the Obamacare compromise? That we didn't have to read it before they voted?

[Ranger]

Well, I think this may be the kind of situation, like the House Banking thing, that the spin doesn't work. People get basic things. When you write a check without money in the bank, it bounces. When you run up your credit card bill to the point you've maxed out your limit, you stop spending on it. The fact that in DC they want to live by different rules bothers people, especially when they are using our money to do it.

[pagar]

"It is clear that it has simply become a means of stealing people's money via taxes, and handing it out to friends of those in government."

Even worse than the taxes, which at least have some basis in legality is the constant attacks on citizens through the use of regulations and fines.

You have one of the most vocal animal rights activist in charge at the USDA
"government bureaucrat who, as a USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service employee with a very long title — Chief, Animal Health and Welfare Enforcement Branch, Investigative and Enforcement Services — and she’s threatening John and Judy Dollarhite with fines of up to $3.9 million in fines for the “crime” of selling more than $500 worth of bunnies during a single calendar year without a USDA license."

http://bobmccarty.com/2011/06/27/animal-rights-activism-fuels-usda-rabbit-chase/

She sent 2 USDA inspectors driving 3 hours ea just to check whether there were any rabbits on the Dollarhite property. Can you imagine how many inspectors she is going to have to send out to find every domestic rabbit in America and make sure they comply with what ever reg the USDA wants to write?

[hit and run]

MarkO:
Why do we have Andrea Mitchell?

Punishment for past sins is the only explanation I can come up with.

[Jane says obamasucks]

I saw 3 rabbits this morning. I wonder if I am at risk.

[Threadkiller]

How many jobs will be lost due to those vending machines?