Nancy Pelosi labels budget-cutting Republicans the 'E. Coli Club'

[ProSense]

Nancy Pelosi labels budget-cutting Republicans the 'E. Coli Club'

by Meteor Blades

At a campaign event Monday for primary candidate Lois Frankel in a Florida contest for a seat Democrats consider essential for regaining their House of Representatives majority, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dubbed Republicans the "E. Coli Club" for the party's willingness to cut programs protecting Americans' health and safety.

Pelosi was on hand in Palm Beach County at the Veranda Club to tell an audience of about 100 that Frankel would be a fighter for Social Security and Medicare, programs the Republican leadership seeks to weaken or dismantle. But she really hit the mark looking more broadly at GOP budget whacks, even interjecting a Southernism with a sharp edge—"bless their hearts":

“I say to (Republicans), do you have children that breathe air? Do you have grandchildren that drink water?,” Pelosi asked. “I’m a mom and I have five kids ... as a mom I was vigilant about food safety, right moms? If you could depend on the government for one thing it was that you had to be able to trust the water that our kids drank and the food that they ate. But this is the E. coli club. They do not want to spend money to do that.” <...>

“Bless their hearts, it’s the philosophy Republicans in Congress have,” Pelosi added. “And bless their hearts, they act upon their beliefs. It’s an ideology. We shouldn’t have a government role. So reduce the police, the firemen, the teachers, reduce their role and give tax cuts to the high end. That will stimulate the economy and everything will be good.”

Sadly, Pelosi's E. coli remark isn't hyperbole.

There was a time just a bit over a century ago when many Republicans, including President Teddy Roosevelt, took a different view of things. During that 20-year-long era, progressive legislation was passed to break up corporate trusts, extend rights to workers and do thing that today we take for granted, like inspecting food. The dominance of corporate money both in economics and politics, the attacks on workers' rights and cutbacks even in what is spent on making sure our food is safe illustrates just how retrograde the Republicans have been.

Not only are they bucking for membership in the E. Coli Club, they aren't even being economically efficient about it, something they like to give themselves high marks for. They seek, for instance, to ax $700 million out of the Food and Drug Administration's budget to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act. That legislation, in the spirit of the progressive legislation of 100 years ago, is designed to reduce the numbers of foodborne illnesses in the United States. Currently, those illnesses kill 3,000 Americans annually and force the hospitalization of 128,000. Cost: an estimated $152 billion. Even if people's health and lives don't matter to them, you would think Republicans would care about the money.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/07/1117587/-Nancy-Pelosi-labels-budget-cutting-Republicans-the-E-Coli-Club

Republicans want to cut food safety programs to fund tax cuts for the rich. Will Boehner follow Mitt's lead and offer up a lame, projecting comeback: Well, she's the leader of the golf club.

[FarPoint]

1. So appropriate ...

Considering the source of e-coli

You know the source site, right? Feces....bacteria from the lower intestinal tract.....

Yeap...Nancy has this assessment down correctly.