Bush Administration tries to stop companies from testing their cows for Mad Cow Disease
From the AP wire:
WASHINGTON: The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.
The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.
Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.
You know Republicans? Those friendly chaps who have this unshakeable faith in the free market to solve all ills? The party that hates government so much they want to drown it in the bathtub?
Well, one enterprising young company had the innovative idea of testing all their beef for Mad Cow Disease, thus differentiating their product. Republicans should be smug, right? See? The free market works. Creekstone farms has addressed an untapped demand in the market, thus creating competition and therefore lower prices and better quality for all.
Unfortunately, the corporate bankrollers of the party don’t much care for the idea of competition.
There has always been a strained relationship between conservative ideology (ie Goldwater conservatism) and the actions actually taken by conservatives (Bush Jr. and Reagan conservatism). One type of conservatism has a claim to a long line of distinguished thinkers such as Edmund Burke, and is a legitimate political ideology. The other type of conservatism funds the Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix.
Guess which type we have in power here in Monroe County.
Wow, that’s amazing. It’s all about corporations, at the expense of small biz and small farmers.
And you make a good connection– the local GOP is about pay-to-play, and keeping their own local noise machine going, rather than conservative ideology.