Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

By Natalie Sirkin “The federal bureaucracies en masse are exogenous factors weighing on an economy that is taxed, regulated and coerced almost to death” -- Donald A. Benedetti The rationale for the food-safety act is food-contamination. Has there been any? Indeed there has. Examples are E. Coli and salmonella outbreaks in peanuts, eggs, lettuce, peppers, potatoes, spinach, and a million pounds recalled of sausage and salami. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that 5,000 people die every year from food-contamination and 76,000 people are hospitalized. These problems come from large-scale industrial food production or industrial agriculture, not from the small farmers covered by the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010—but “one size fits all.” Safety is the rationale for the bill, fueled by competition to industrial agriculture from organic farmers whose business is growing rapidly. The Senate’s food safety bill, S.510 , passed easily last December 7 with...