Federal Food Safety Act a Civics Lesson for Harry Reid?

Yesterday, the dummies in the Senate, including 14 Republicans, voted to pass the "FDA Food Safety Modernization Act", a bill that will raise the price of food.

Today, Majority Leader Reid and his retarded fellows are getting a lesson in civics:

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate’s lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

By pre-empting the House’s tax-writing authority, Senate Democrats appear to have touched off a power struggle with members of their own party in the House. The Senate passed the bill Tuesday, sending it to the House, but House Democrats are expected to use a procedure known as “blue slipping” to block the bill, according to House and Senate GOP aides.

The bill included several "fees" (aka "taxes") on businesses to pay for new federal food inspectors and other bureaucratic expansion. Roll Call speculates that Reid will have to drop the bill until next year, since Republicans led by Senator Coburn won't agree to change the lame duck schedule now.

One word of caution: the source for this story appears to be Republican staffers in the House and the Senate, who expect House Democrats to not let the Senate usurp the House's constitutional prerogative. Let's just say my expectation that House Democrats will "do the right thing" is not very high. It could happen, but I'm not going to put big money on it.

Update: Just so you know who the 14 Republican retards who voted for this thing are:

Alexander (R-TN)
Brown (R-MA)
Burr (R-NC)
Collins (R-ME)
Enzi (R-WY)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kirk (R-IL)
LeMieux (R-FL)
Lugar (R-IN)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Snowe (R-ME)
Vitter (R-LA)

Idiots.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:26 AM

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