The whole escalating furor over unsafe eggs being shipped even when they were known to contain salmonella strikes me as a perfect object lesson for those who think government is not worth a dime - until it's needed.
As a Republican President and a Republican majority pretty much let businesses dictate their own terms for most of the decade, one result was a considerable lessening of regulatory controls on a wide variety of American business; businesses would henceforth regulate themselves, obviating government watchdogs. At the same time, advocates of so-called "small government" pushed tax cuts (but not war spending), hoping to "starve" government à la Reagan; this led to budget cuts in many areas, but especially in those "unnecessary" regulatory commissions and agencies.
We've seen the result in the financial and real estate markets, and in coal mining, and have been dealing with it for some time now. But we've also begun to see it in food safety - tomatoes, nuts, jalapeno peppers, pet food. Now eggs. This latest case stands out because here, the media are working hard to stir outrage that salmonella was detected as early as last spring in the two companies now in the spotlight, but regulators did nothing about it. Yet regulators at all levels, thanks in large part to budget cuts and staffing reductions, are understaffed and until July, didn't even have the power to shut down a plant producing tainted food.
The lessons are just plain common sense, if you've ever heard the adage about the fox and the henhouse: (a) Given the opportunity, some businesses will inevitably cut corners to reduce costs, even where public health is involved; (b) no instituition can be counted on to regulate itself; (c) there is a legitimate role for government regulation; (d) like anything else, government services have to be paid for and (e) the way that's done is through taxes. The whole conflation of small-government, no-tax, pro-business "concepts" that was so popular with the Bush crowd is nonsense.
There will, of course be compromises. I doubt that any of us would care to pay the full costs of (say) weekly inspections of the thousands of food companies across the country. Yet clearly, a budget that allows for only a dozen inspections a year (across the many thousands) is inadequate. There must be balance, but overall, there's room for a good deal more to be done.
Often, regulation is best when it's preventive. However, there's constant resistance, in many sectors of business, to any standards that raise costs. That's why we have power lines strung through the trees, subject to interruption in every rainstorm; and it's why we have food production facilities that aren't built to keep out rats, flies, and other disease carriers. It's not impossible, as this article regarding practices in Denmark suggests.
Currently, the advice is to avoid many common brands of eggs, or to be sure your eggs are "fully cooked." Yet the best ways of eating eggs are those that leave the yolk runny: soft-boiled, poached, or sunny-side up. Should we just adapt to having our eating practices dictated by the failure of producers to work to prevent problems? Maybe. We've done that in many instances. (Remember when you could eat a steak rare without worrying about dying?) But it's getting tiresome.
(This post is also being cross-posted on Morning Fog .)
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