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When policy makers responsible for writing a bill send a letter telling an enforcement agency that it is out of line, one would hope the agency would sit up and listen. This week, Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claiming that the agency's recently released guidelines on dietary supplements undermines the statutory framework for regulating such supplements, as outlined in a bill crafted by the two Senators. If the outcry in the supplement industry and consumer advocates hasn't got the attention of FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, perhaps the Senators' letter will.

In 2011, Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which among other things, required the FDA to provide clarification on when supplement manufacturers must file New Dietary Ingredient notifications (NDI) and what information they must provide to the agency. The NDI filing system was meant to be a streamlined way for makers of new supplements to notify the FDA of the proper dosage and uses for the product, as well as why it is reasonably expected to be safe.  As noted in the Senators' letter, the guidance required by the FSMA was meant to clarify the NDI filing process and work in conjunction with legislation already on the books - namely, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), which Hatch and Harkin wrote and which created the regulatory framework for the dietary supplements market.

The weekend before the New Hampshire presidential primary has historically produced a great deal of movement.

Newt Gingrich is a lobbyist. Any way you cut the cake, he was working to influence policy. Under current law, however, Gingrich most likely didn’t need to register since he probably didn't spend at least 20% of his time on “covered lobbing activities.”  If that's the case, Gingrich joins a few thousand others in this town who are paid to lobby but are not required to register as lobbyists due to gaping holes in the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). Those loopholes need to be closed.

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For six-months now, Republican voters, like an ensemble of bemused Barbie dolls, have hopscotched from one candidate to the next in search of conservative Ken. From Bachmann, to Trump, to Perry, to Cain, to Newt -- they have, in a curious and fickle display of fidelity, indeed navigated the contender gamut. That is, unless the contender is Ron Paul. 

Perhaps not since Ronald Reagan has a Republican presidential candidate been so routinely disparaged, marginalized, and flouted in the incessant manner that Ron Paul has. He has been branded “anti-Semitic,” stamped “unelectable,” and written off as “nutty.” He has been omitted by the conservative intelligentsia; and he has been decried by neocons as a “dangerous isolationist.”

Certainly, the Republican establishment’s treatment of Ron Paul has been iniquitous. Yet, despite this treatment, Ron Paul has remained dignified, gracious, and on message. He has performed consistently well in the polls and debates; and he has refused to pander or waver to special interests or convention. 

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The holidays can be a blur of festive parties, manic shopping, and last-ditch efforts to tie up loose ends for the year. Similarly, Congress is rushing to finish its own schedule for the year.
 
The yearly ritual of preventing scheduled cuts to Medicare payments to physicians is again before Congress. This year, the automatic cut is a whopping 27.4%. If Congress doesn’t act, there is widespread concern that, as Wyoming Senator John Barrasso cautions, these reimbursement cuts will inevitably make it more difficult for patients to receive critical treatments.
 
Efforts to eliminate this annual problem and fix the physician payment system for good have again fallen by the wayside and a short term patch is in the offing along with the dreaded offsets to pay for it. As Congress considers where to look for cuts, it should consider the radical changes that have taken place in medical imaging over the last five years: Medicare spending on medical imaging continues to decline, Medicare patients are receiving fewer imaging procedures and imaging is now a smaller portion of Medicare spending than it was at the turn of the century.

The presidential campaign of Herman Cain is now history and a wild ride it was.  An “also ran” when the campaign began, he took off like a rocket, and despite arrows from the liberal establishment, or maybe because of them, he soared above the GOP field until he was laid low by charges, rumors and just plain sophomore mistakes. The outcome of few races are inevitable and Cain’s implosion certainly was not inevitable.  Here are a couple of things he could have done to change the result.

The Republican debates thus far have been like listening to a 1990s dial-up Internet line: lots of random noise and screeching while waiting for a high-tech connection.
 
We deserve a better connection. We live in a world where our nation’s only hope for future growth depends on constant innovation and new technology. But you’d never know it from the GOP debates to date.
 
Sure there are some almost throw-away lines on “innovation” as a rationale for tax cuts. But that’s about it.
 
It is, pun intended, the elephant in the debate room that no one is talking about.

Conservatives who have been closely following the Republican debates have been looking for the candidate who rejects the “Big-Government” instinct that tempts many-a-contender.  The key for primary voters is finding which issues separate the conservatives from those who are not so conservative.
 
In the recent Republican debate, that issue was education.
 
Education is a big public policy issue that gets scant media coverage during the primary season.  One reason for this is that many Republicans have surrendered on the Constitutional principle that education is a local matter, where it is closest to parents.  

The Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, or the “supercommittee,” meets today for the first time. Americans are rightly concerned that business-as-usual will dominate, including the outsized and damaging influence of special interests and wealthy campaign contributors.  

Committee members Reps. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) both held fundraisers yesterday. At least nine of the 12 members have fundraisers scheduled over the coming months. Lobbyists have called the supercommittee a “lobbying bonanza.” One even said his plan to prepare for the committee was to “write 12 really large checks.”

That’s why we called on supercommittee members to give up all fundraising and disclose all meetings with outside parties. While no member of the supercommittee has yet to agree to our demands, recent news reports indicate that members are taking them seriously and taking steps to address the appearance of undue influence.

Congressional Republicans are shedding “crocodile tears” about the supposed politicization of government contracting that could result from a draft executive order requiring contractors to disclose political contributions. 

Since this spring, the White House has let the leaked executive order twist slowly in the wind and done little to counter the bogus claims being made about it. 

In the meantime, shadowy 501(c)(4) groups have been raising and spending money from secret donors, with the Republican-oriented Crossroads GPS alone spending $20 million on attack ads. The Democratic-leaning (c)(4)s, like Priorities USA, are desperately trying to keep up.
 
The reality is that the ground-shifting Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC cleared the way for a new avenue in political spending.  This new outlet allows corporations and unions to funnel money from their treasury funds into groups that run political ads on television and undertake other activities intended to influence the outcome of elections. The question is whether this new political spending should be disclosed like other political expenditures.  The answer is, “yes.”