House Will Vote to Dismantle Another Piece of Michelle Obama’s Legacy

February 2, 2018 By Calvin Freiburger

Bit by bit, Donald Trump’s administration and Congressional Republicans have been steadily eliminating regulations enacted by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Every now and then, that includes uprooting one of former First Lady Michelle Obama’s passion projects.

The Washington Examiner reports that next week, the House of Representatives is set to vote on the Common Sense Nutrition Disclosure Act, legislation introduced by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) that takes aim at Obama-era regulations that mandate that restaurants and other commercial eateries give customers calorie counts and other nutritional information about the food they’re selling.
The bill doesn’t abolish the rules outright, but does lighten their burden:

First, it get restaurants off the hook from having to provide calorie counts and other information for every possible combination of food.

“Under the current rule, every deli and salad bar offering, every possible pizza topping combination, will have to be calculated and their calorie count displayed on physical menus,” she said about her bill last year.

“The FDA wants these restaurants to put on paper all of these variations and their calorie counts, and have it publicly displayed in the restaurants,” she added. “It’s an unrealistic use of these business owners’ time.”
A second change would allow retail food establishments to provide nutritional information online, if most of their customers are ordering food online and having it delivered.
And third, it would eliminate some of the law’s criminal penalties against companies that fail to comply. McMorris Rodgers said last year it doesn’t make sense to demand strict and complete accuracy from restaurants given the nature of how meals are prepared and served.
“An employee that puts too many pickles on a sandwich thereby increasing the calorie count stated on the menu should not face criminal charges or class-action lawsuits,” she said.
Of course, a House vote is no guarantee that the Senate will be able to pass it (or even try). But I’ve kind of been writing that rant a lot around these parts lately, so I’ll simply refer you to this link rather than rehashing it. So instead, let’s say a few words about the folly of the Obamas’ whole health police enterprise.

The Michelle Obama health push sounded all well and good if you didn’t stop to think about it, but it turns out that when you try to pursue a lofty goal through liberalism’s default method, trying to control people, it has all sorts of not-so-compassionate results, such as making products more expensive for the very people you claim to represent.

(Then again, to the Obamas it’s likely that destroying businesses that traffic in those eeevil fatty foods could very well have been seen as a feature rather than a bug.)

Oh, and it doesn’t even achieve the stated goal anyway, because healthy eating and exercises are matters of choice and habit. Unless government up and nationalizes the grocery and fast food industries (I hope I didn’t just give them the idea), people who lack the concern or self-discipline to shape up will satisfy their sweet tooth one way or another.

House Will Vote to Dismantle Another Piece of Michelle Obama’s Legacy