Obama's S.510 dilemma

By Bill Zwerger

Could the first couple's marital bliss be the first victim of this latest liberal over-reach?

By all accounts Senate Bill 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, is an ideal piece of progressive legislation. Meaning, of course, that Barack Obama should endorse it wholeheartedly. At first glance, it appears to have all the proper ingredients to make it a statist's regulatory dream come true. From Michael Geer's AT exposé:

1) It is a dangerously broad regulatory bill giving extensive discretionary power to the FDA over the entire food supply; 2) It would impose one-size-fits-all-regulations on thousands of small and mid-sized farmers, small-scale local farms and food producers; 3) It attempts to limit the authority of our own domestic U.S. laws when it includes language ensuring that our US law will not disturb other international agreements that we have made.

But wait just a minute there comrade. I see trouble on the horizon for Mr. Obama if he signs this monstrosity, which threatens to place crippling restrictions on small-scale food producers, into law. First and foremost, there is the very real possibility of putting his wife's cherished south lawn vegetable garden out of commission, and we can only imagine how upset Michelle would be about that. So how does the President reconcile the tantalizing prospect of controlling the nation's food supply with the strong likelihood of raising Michelle's ire? Tough choice there.

Continuing along those lines, the other vexing issue for the President to consider before he severely limits our dietary choices is this; what will the First Lady do now with all the time she spent on planting, cultivating, and waxing eloquent about her miracle garden? Does the President really want Michelle hanging around the Oval Office looking for some other official business to meddle in? Or even more unsettling to the First Dude; will she now use her time to pay closer attention to his less than ideal eating habits?

Ah, the delicious irony of unintended liberal consequences.