It's a conundrum....on the one hand we want to REDUCE GOVERNMENT and cut spending....but on the other hand we want the government to guarantee that EVERYTHING IS SAFE.
Think about it....we want to make sure that Ford Fiesta cars don't blow up...and we want someone to check it out when they do. We want to make sure there are no terrorists on airplanes, no guns in schools, no dangerous pesticides on our apples, no feces in our fish, no worms in our burgers, no lice in our sweaters, no stink bugs in our basements, no hoodlums on our corners, no prostitutes standing on our corners, no oil companies drilling into our ground water supply, no pornography piped through the TV and radio airwaves, no rabies in dogs, etc., etc...... In short we want our world to be safe, but we are sick of paying for the millions of people that are required to check all this stuff out.
Today the headlines are telling us that the USDA is closing 200+ offices. I will put some of the major info in bold and you see if this doesn't point to some foreshadowing of future "issues".
DES MOINES, Iowa – The U.S. Agriculture Department announced Monday it will close nearly 260 offices nationwide, a move that won praise for cutting costs but raised concerns about the possible effect on food safety.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the goal was to save $150 million a year in the agency's $145 billion budget. About $90 million had already been saved by reducing travel and supplies, and the closures were expected to save another $60 million, he said.
"They wiped out the entire Midwest," said Lorenz, whose office handles all federal inspections of meat, poultry and egg products in Minnesota, Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming.
"Our workload is at record highs, we have less money and fewer people and work to do and we tried to address how do you do that without interrupting service," Vilsack said in a phone call from Honolulu, where he was speaking to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Colin Woodall, a spokesman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which represents more than 147,000 ranchers nationwide, applauded the USDA for trying to save taxpayers' money in tight economic times but also expressed concern about food safety.
"We can't say this is all great news because some offices will be closed," he said. "We have to make sure we have the process in place to keep food safe."
"Over the long haul, we believe farmers and ranchers across the country will be better served by the choices we made," he said.
But that was of little consolation to California cotton growers mourning the loss of the 80-year-old agriculture research station at Shafter, which solved many of the industry's pest and fungus issues.
Calcot, a growers' co-op that sells more than a million bales annually, had lobbied officials to keep the center, which lately has been working to address fusarium wilt, a soil-dwelling fungus that attacks cotton plants.
"This is going to be to the detriment of the U.S. cotton industry and ultimately the world because so much research there has benefited growers everywhere," Calcot spokesman Mark Bagby said.
So when the cotton crop gets over run with some new fungus....who do we want to fix it?....THE GOVERNMENT.
And when an E Coli outbreak kills 5 people eating ground beef...who do we want to solve it....THE GOVERNMENT.
And when the wheat crop begins to fail from some strange pest.....THE GOVERNMENT.
And when a jet falls from the sky and we want an answer....THE GOVERNMENT.
Friends, I will remind you that farming is VASTLY different that it was 50 years ago when everyone had an uncle or brother who was farming a few hundred acres and had 40 cows, 20 hogs, and 50 chickens. Today's agriculture operations are thousands of hogs, turkeys, cows, chickens and fish all raised in very tight quarters that rely on antibiotics being pumped into them 24 hours per day just to survive. The crops that we raise are all genetically modified to produce the most bushels with the least amount of rain and require enormous amounts of fertilizer....but they are also VERY susceptible to some strange fungus blowing in and wiping everything out.
The Bible tells us clearly to expect famine in the Last Days. So who will be around in the USDA to solve the next huge fungus outbreak or swine flu outbreak that will threaten the nation's food production and safety?
Good question.
