As Republicans gather for their midterm convention this fall, there are plenty of accomplishments for which to be proud. The 2024 elections proved that voters were hungry for a party that would take the cost of living seriously. They rewarded Republicans accordingly.
But winning one election does not build a permanent governing majority. What builds a majority is showing up to the grocery store, the gas pump, and the kitchen table and proving that your side actually lowered the bill.
I am a mother of three boys. My grocery runs are not small. Bidenflation has increased costs across the board, and families are still watching every price tag. A New York Times poll earlier this year found food affordability sitting in the top five concerns for people across the country. That number should be taped to every Republican lawmaker’s desk in Washington before they head into their convention meetings.
The story of 2024 was affordability and Bidenflation. Voters turned out for Republicans because eggs cost too much, because families were making hard choices at checkout, and because the party in power had stopped caring about the consequences of its own spending. Republicans ran on relief, lower taxes, and serving the people. And they won.
Now comes the harder part. Staying on offense.
Here is something that does not get nearly enough attention in the convention speech circuit. A growing patchwork of state ingredient laws is quietly building toward a 12% increase in grocery prices for the average American household. This is the finding of an independent economic analysis, and it should be setting off alarm bells for all Republicans.
States across the country are passing their own food ingredient safety and labeling laws. The result is about as contradictory a landscape as you can imagine. California does something, then Texas does something different, then a dozen other states pile on with their own variations. Food manufacturers, distributors, and packagers then have to comply with 50 different regulatory standards instead of one. Those compliance costs go somewhere. They go into the price of the cereal box, the salad dressing, and the can of soup. They go straight to the checkout line.
A coalition of over 270 organizations, including state farm bureaus, grocer associations, and food and beverage manufacturers, has urged Congress to stop this before it becomes a full-blown kitchen-table crisis. Their solution is straightforward:
- Establish a single, uniform national standard for food and beverage ingredient review, labeling, and safety
- Reaffirm the Food and Drug Administration’s role as the primary authority, so that companies answer to one set of science-based rules instead of a state-by-state obstacle course
- Modernize the Generally Recognized as Safe framework in a way that is workable, risk-based, and applied the same way from coast to coast
And this is where Republicans can build a genuine record to take into November.
Two-thirds of swing-district voters say they would be more likely to support a candidate who backs national uniformity for ingredient safety and transparency, according to polling conducted specifically in competitive districts. These are persuadable voters who are looking for a reason to stay with the party that promised to fight for their pocketbooks.
Republicans talked frequently in 2024 about protecting workers, families, and the purchasing power of ordinary people. Showing up to a midterm convention without a concrete answer to a problem that will raise grocery prices by 12% is not a good look for a party that built its recent majority on kitchen-table economics.
Congress needs to act this year. Modernizing GRAS and creating a national uniform approach to ingredient review and labeling is not a heavy political lift. There is bipartisan concern about food costs, broad consumer support for transparency, and a clear economic case for action.
Momentum is building. Leaders in Congress, such as Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), have voiced support for congressional action to establish a national standard.
Cassidy signaled at a recent markup that he is working on legislative action: “I’ll continue to work on other initiatives in this space, including the need for a national uniform standard for food regulations rather than a patchwork of widely different state laws.”
“As the executive branch and Congress work together to strengthen a variety of food safety processes, consistent ingredient transparency standards must be part of that conversation,” Husted said, “American families deserve to know what’s in their food and what they are feeding their loved ones.”
THE IRAN WAR AND $40 TRILLION DEBT JUST MADE CHINESE BONDS LOOK SAFE
Republicans walked into 2024 with a simple message: The other side made your life more expensive, and we are going to fix it. That message worked. The midterm convention is a moment to recommit to that promise with specifics. Fixing the state patchwork on food ingredient regulation is a specific, achievable, and politically smart way to do exactly that.
The voters who handed Republicans this majority are still at the grocery store every week. They are still doing the math. Congress should be doing the same.
Patrice Onwuka is a senior adviser to Americans for Ingredient Transparency and vice president for economic policy and director of Independent Women’s Center for Economic Opportunity.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
