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Obama has odd way of showing concern for the deficit

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 16, 2009

Naples Daily News, on President Obama's request to end more than 120 programs to cut back on federal spending:

The Bush administration said deficits didn't matter and proceeded to rack up a record string of them. The Obama administration professes to believe the contrary, the president telling his Cabinet recently, "We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits do not matter.... We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration or the next generation."

He has an odd way of showing his concern for the deficit. New White House forecasts show higher than expected deficits: $1.8 trillion this year, almost four times the previous record set by President George W. Bush, and $1.3 trillion next. Right now, 46 cents of every $1 the federal government spends is borrowed money.

And as for not postponing the hard choices, the White House forecasts show that, even assuming a fully recovered economy, the deficits will not dip below $500 billion a year for the next decade, meaning that, yes, the problem of the deficit will pass to the next president.

The White House argues that big spending - the Wall Street bailout, the stimulus package - is a necessary but temporary evil to jump-start the country out of recession. Even so, there's nothing in President Barack Obama's budgets or his economic policy speeches to indicate a serious assault on the deficit once the current crisis passes. And what additional revenues there are in his budget are earmarked to offset the cost of his health-care reforms, not deficit reduction.

Last week, Obama essayed a token round of budget cuts by asking Congress to kill or cut 121 programs for a savings of $17 billion, one-half of 1 percent of next year's projected $3.4 trillion in federal spending. His proposal immediately ran into a storm of opposition on Capitol Hill, mostly from his own Democrats, as lawmakers rallied around their pet programs.

Maybe deficits really do matter to Obama, but it's fair to ask whether our new president grasps how fully the culture of spending has become institutionalized in Washington. One way or another, he will soon learn.

The (Lakeland) Ledger, on how most dietary supplements are unregulated and unsafe:

Yet another line of dietary supplements - sold by the millions as pills, powders and liquids, with the claim that they would burn fat and suppress appetites - has been recalled.

The recall of Hydroxycut shows again why such products and their manufacturers' claims should be tested and verified by federal regulators before the supplements are marketed and sold.

Iovate Health Services, of Ontario, Canada, recalled 14 variations of Hydroxycut on May 1. The company was under pressure from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which warned customers to stop using the popular products. The FDA cited 23 reports of significant adverse health effects in users, including liver and muscle damage, and heart problems. Leading medical journals found evidence of similar health troubles related to use of the supplement.

The number of reported health problems isn't huge, but it's nearly impossible for the FDA to grasp the extent of side effects because the agency relies on manufacturers and customers to report them.

Moreover, the recall of Hydroxycut represents just the latest in a long series of withdrawals and warnings involving so-called weight-loss pills. Since December, the FDA has identified and warned consumers about 70 brands of pills that illegally contain prescription-drug ingredients.

Consumers must assume some responsibility for protecting themselves, but they have an inadequate defense system. Labels that fail to list all the ingredients are part of the problem, but the biggest shortcoming is the FDA's inability to proactively examine supplements.

Under most circumstances, the law does not require dietary supplements to be proved safe to the FDA's satisfaction. Ditto for the claims.

In general, the FDA can only act after a dietary supplement is on the market and voluntary reports of problems - filed by consumers or physicians - trickle in. Even then, the FDA must show a "significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury."

The FDA has been hampered since 1994, when Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. When the act was approved and signed by then-President Clinton, the FDA warned "about the seriousness of ... reported adverse events and their increasing number."

Little has changed since then.

Consumers deserve better. The supplement act should be changed to give the FDA adequate authority to ensure that the multibillion-dollar supplement industry meets essential safety standards.

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