Dana Milbank: Budget cuts as back-door deregulation
Those who say we’re being regulated into a state of European socialism might wish to consult with some of the federal poultry inspectors who assembled Monday morning outside the Agriculture Department. They were protesting a proposal to allow chicken slaughterhouses to inspect themselves — eliminating those pesky federal monitors who have the annoying habit of taking diseased birds out of the food supply.
Among the hundred or so picketers at the union-organized protest were two men in six-foot-tall chicken costumes and a guy carrying a rubber chicken that squawked when its belly was squeezed. They wielded signs demanding “Don’t play chicken with food safety” and “Don’t let the fox guard my chicken.” They chanted along as a man shouted into a bullhorn: “We don’t want no funky chicken.” The rubber chicken squawked in time.
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The loss of federal food safety inspectors — coming just after a controversy over a beef producer’s use of a meat filler known as pink slime — sounds about as palatable as a salmonella sandwich. But USDA officials say there’s no reason to get queasy: The inspectors will be shifted to other tasks — microbiological testing and the like — that would reduce food-borne illness.
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/budget-cuts-as-back-door-deregulation/2012/04/02/gIQA4zkhrS_story.html
