One of the themes of the Bush years — and it extended into Arkansas, too — was the notion that Big Government was mean to the private companies that make this country great. If the private businesses could not be trusted to operate with the public’s health and safety in mind, who could you trust?

Well, you know the answer to that. As environmental and other regulators moved to voluntary compliance schemes, the public interest has suffered. (See the burgeoning environmental disasters in Fayetteville shale exploration for an example.)

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And read here about the unbelievable situation in which the FDA could not put out warnings about contaminated peanut butter until it had the PERMISSION of the rogue purveyor of tainted food to do so.

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