It is obvious that our lawmakers aren’t watching television, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or magazines…or reading SupermarketGuru.com.

After scathing reports on how under-funded the USDA and FDA are these days, we bet on the fact that the folks in Washington DC had finally woken up and heard the pleas from shoppers (as well as just about every food trade group) that implored them to increase the budgets to protect our food better. The FDA advisory panel report warned that the present situation at the FDA was so bad that American lives were at risk. The report noted that the FDA food inspections were actually 78% less based on volume of foods over the past 35 years.

This is a glaring and missed opportunity to raise consumer confidence in our food supply; however, it seems that message was lost on the politicos who must have already checked out for Christmas break.

The spending bill now in Congress is a mere $513 million for FDA’s food safety programs, up $56 million (that’s just 12%) from the 2007 budget.; it's important to note that about half the increase will be used up by annual cost increases and pay raises.

Your opinion?