One of the policy items you hear the Administration tout as part of defending their record is the food safety bill. Food policy experts considered it flawed, but generally a step in the right direction, and the first overhaul of the nation’s food safety system in decades. There’s every reason for the White House to use that as part of their list of accomplishments.

There’s only one thing: as a result of the legislation, the FDA has more responsibility but does not have more money.

Imagine, if you will, living somewhat close to a nuclear reactor—not right next door, but close enough—and then imagine that an accident at that reactor causes a large release of radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. Certainly scary, but maybe less scary because you know your government has computer models that show where the nuclear fallout will blow and fall, and they explain that the amounts that will blow and fall on you are negligible.

Sure, you might think twice about that reassurance, but it is not like they are saying everything is OK. The government, after all, did evacuate some people based on their fallout models. . . so they are on top of it.

Food safety is cut 1% below the previous year’s level. The Labor Department program for green jobs has been cut. The Justice Department’s asset forfeiture fund, which helps fund its criminal investigations, got a $500 million hit. The Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) has been cut $500 million from 2010 levels. The total reduction in the Financial Services area, barely a year out from passing Dodd-Frank, approaches 10%. There’s a $942 million cut to the Community Development Fund program, which is nearly 1/4 of the total. And two programs in the health care law, Kent Conrad’s co-ops and Ron Wyden’s Free Choice voucher, have been eliminated.

This is the first time I’ve seen Japanese officials admit that any radiation existed above recommended levels, if only for infants. Older children and adults are supposedly OK. In fact, they’re still trying to say that any water consumed prior to this point by babies is fine. But they are cautioning against it now because of the presence of cancer-causing radioactive iodine. And that’s in Tokyo – 150 miles from Fukushima.

Next week is the State of the Union address, and I thought I’d offer a little last minute, unsolicited advice to the president and the White House speechwriters. Some may think it presumptuous, but as one of “we, the people,” I think it’s allowable. It’s not like they have to take the advice, after all . . . but it sure would be nice to see and hear something like this.

We know about Darrell Issa’s steady stream of investigations. What we didn’t know is how central federal regulations were to that list. In fact, in determining how to proceed on the regulatory aspect of his oversight hearings, he has enlisted the industries themselves to tell him which regulations to jettison. Because there’s nothing corporations do better than act in the public interest.

The Senate continued a mad rush in their fairly productive lame duck session today, passing a food safety bill and filing cloture to end debate on ratification of the new START treaty.

So would there be another opportunity for the bill? Senate leadership aides tell FDL News that they will try to include the bill in their version of a continuing resolution. The Senate’s continuing resolution would only fund the government through February 18, in all likelihood, giving the more conservative incoming Congress an early opportunity to slash federal spending. But the Senate leadership does want to move that along with the food safety bill.

Today begins the final two months of the Democratic majority in the House, and the large majority in the Senate. So what do Democrats plan to do with that majority, as well as their 255-178 spread in the House? Not a heck of a lot. The lame duck session will be dominated by talk about what to do on the Bush tax cuts, but there are some other issues that are likely to get taken up as well.

It’s worth noting that there are enough “emergency” pieces of legislation to tide over a session that could be as small as three weeks (one week before Thanksgiving, and perhaps only two weeks after). Congress needs to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running. There are several pieces of legislation that expire on November 30, like extended unemployment benefits and the “doctor’s fix” for Medicare reimbursement rates. And then there are the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year. Clearly that doesn’t leave much room for energy, child nutrition, DADT, the DREAM Act, labor bills, a Chinese currency measure, the new START treaty or even the deficit commission recommendations, parts or all of which had been promised a vote in the lame duck.