We constantly hear about the brilliance of Republican messaging, but in reality, all we get is white whine. A few days ago, Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene lofted the first ordnance over the baby formula wars. “Pictures are emerging today from the border, where the Biden administration has been sending pallets of baby formula for illegal mothers and their babies while American mothers and babies cannot find baby formula,”said Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia—setting aside the irony of her sanctimonious stance every zygote and embryo is precious. After Greene’s declaration that President Biden is feeding brown babies at the border at the expense of American babies, the frenzy has started. Yesterday the new House Republican Chair [Elise Stefanik] derisively called the President “bare shelves Biden.” I am reminded of the comic George Carlin’s love the fetus, hate the child routine. “They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. ‘After that, they don’t want to know about you!”’
The baby formula shortage is too severe—an issue for the usual mixture of xenophobia and trolling by the GOP. Were the GOP searching for solutions and not division, they would join in with the Democrats to relax the restrictions (even temporarily) on the prohibition of imported baby formula. The four companies that produce baby formula could ramp up domestic production during that period. The United States does not import foreign infant formula because the Food and Drug Administration does not have compatible regulations ensuring compliance with the U.S. health code. To their credit, Republican Reps. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) and Randi Feenstra (R-Iowa) introduced a bill called the Formula Act.
It fell short of working directly with the Biden administration; because, politically, scoring points was more important than taking care of a problem. “Instead, Bare Shelves Biden has continued to pass the buck. It is a step toward a recognized set of domestic and imported baby formula standards. Biden and the FDA needed to work directly with the manufacturers and hospitals to make sure that we have an adequate supply of baby formula and make sure that parents know where to go if the shelves are empty at the store,”Stefanik said.
The genesis of the problem started with an alleged manufacturing snafu at Abbott Nutrition’s Sturgis, Michigan plant. So I reluctantly anticipate a weekend of Sunday morning talk shows with the hosts glumly staring and nodding approvingly at republican spokespeople and surrogates accusing Joe Biden of starving babies. Foolishly, I will watch Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and This Week listening to Republicans whine and point fingers without offering more than a rhetorical solution. Supply chain, inflation, gas prices, and now baby formula are all the fault of Joe Biden, they will say. Of course, things like the rule of law, obeying subpoenas, free expression, and condemning insurrection are beyond their capacity for recrimination.
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