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It's disingenuous to complain that this plan makes an unprecedented an end run around the US constitution when such end-runs are common place. The constitution declares that powers not claimed in that document for the federal government are the providence of the states. However the federal government has for years been regularly legislating in those areas. Congress ties states' compliance with such laws to federal funding, after a system of dependancy  on that funding has been established. This allows the federal government to secure those powers against the spirit of the constitution while remaining in compliance with the letter of that document.

posted 3 years ago
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While calorie lists on restaurant menus are a great idea on the face of it, I worry about the effect on small businesses. A place like McDonalds or Red Robin has a national menu, standardized ingredients and the kind of consistency that makes it very easy to determine calories - or even complete processed-food-like labels with everything from grams of saturated fat to % RDA of vitamin B12. One person or team at heaadquarters can do it for the entire nation, and each individual franchise feels no impact or cost besides ordering new menus once more often than they would have had to when the law is implemented.

But what about independent restauants without the same economy of scale? When the heart and soul of a unique and innovative Portland restaurant is a hard-working head chef who's stretched to the limit just creating and quality-controlling the menu, when so many of the restaurants you see well-reviewed in Portland Monthly will not be open a year from now because competition is so stiff and margins are so thin, when a place makes its name by its frequently changing specials, variety and every-dish-is-unique-made-just-for-you reputation, our indigenous eateries will be hobbled compared to the chains we lament are becoming too large a part of the landscape.

Either these places sacrifice scarce budget dollars for payroll time to accurately rate these items, or they cut back their variety to make the task simpler - not to mention installing bins of standardized ingredients and measures so the creativity of individual staff is stifled, or they make a cursory, knowingly innacurate attempt at labelling, relying on the fact that legislators will who pass the law will be in denial about the near-unworkablility of any effective enforcement process.

posted 3 years, 1 month ago
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