Bush USDA Finally Supports Banning Downer Cattle From Slaughter After Fighting Ban Last Month

by Steve

Amazing what a major political embarrassment with your party’s fingerprints all over it will do for advancing public policy less than a year before an election. Just a month after the GOP intentionally deleted a Democratically-sponsored provision from a budget bill that would have prevented the use of “downer cattle” for slaughter, and under fire from the media and consumer advocates, USDA Secretary Ann Veneman announced today that the USDA would do what the bill would have done in the first place. Such a reversal wouldn't have been necessary if the Administration wasn't wearing kneepads for the industry, but if the multi-million dollars in damage to our export industry was the price to be paid for progress that should have been made in the public interest in the first place, then it is only fitting that the ranchers and packers took it in the shorts for not doing the right thing all along.

How do you feel now, Mr. DeLay?