-By Warner Todd Huston
Nothing says Washington crookedness like a congressman slipping a clause into a bill that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the main purpose of the legislation. Here we have just another cynical, corrupt bargain made in Washington D.C. with the effort of Henry Waxman (D, Ca) who slipped a little clause into the Wall Street “Reform” bill that is little else but an attack on the healthfood industry. This provision would give Congress more control over all health supplements and vitamins in America and likely lead to many of these businesses shutting their doors.
So often Congress acts like the little kid with his mom in the grocery store. While mom is putting fruits, vegetables, milk, and good marbled beef into the shopping cart, the bratty kid is throwing candy and toys made in China into the basket when he thinks mom isn’t looking. Congress is, of course, the bratty kids of our system. And they need a good whipping.
The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173), was passed by the House and is now in the Senate waiting for that body to take action. But while this law is supposed to be saving our economy, Rep. Waxman seems more interested in destroying the country’s vitamin stores. And to that end, he slipped into this economics bill more regulations on the dietary supplement industry.
Sad to say almost every bill that oozes through Congress has these sort of unnecessary and unconnected additions to them. It is the corrupt way that Congressmen get the goodies that they are looking to pass even if the idea is so harebrained that legislation can’t move when their cockeyed ideas are transparently out in the open and addressed on their own merits.
What Waxman’s provision does is give even more power to the Federal Trade Commission to regulate dietary supplements. Of course, the FTC already has the power to force dietary supplement producers to make sure that they are not misleading people with their products but Waxman wanted more.
Waxman’s provision will force dietary supplement companies to follow FDA styled human trial rules, a long and expensive process. In essence, this would drive many of these small companies out of business because they simply wouldn’t be able to afford these long, expensive trial requirements. Naturally, that is just what Waxman wants. A long-time opponent of the dietary supplement industry, Waxman is purposefully trying to use the power of the federal government to drive these companies out of business.
I want to make it clear here that I am not saying I am a supporter of dietary supplements in whole or part. I don’t use any and likely never will. But I am against this government thug from California reshaping federal policy in order to destroy a private industry that he doesn’t like. It is also idiotic that our Representatives are voting on a Wall Street bill that has restrictions for vitamins ridiculously jammed into it. I mean, what the heck does “saving the economy” have to do with attempts to destroy vitamins?
What we see here is just the typical abuse of the public’s trust that our congressmen daily perpetrate not to mention just another case of Washington trying to stick its disgusting, tainted fingers into our economy.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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