GEORGE

LEVENTHAL

IS GOING

TO

DISNEYLAND!

8 of 9 Montgomery County Councilmembers

Achieve their Primary Legislative Goal for

Term: Restaurant Menu Reform

Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal (D-At Large) and all of his colleagues -minus Mike Knapp (who's looking more and more like a credible primary threat to County Executive Ike Leggett each week) - have achieved their top legislative priority: restaurant menu reform.

The Council bill passed, and now all chain restaurants in the county will be forced to change their menus and signage to include "calorie counts" for each item.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's official: your County Council truly believes that we, the citizens, are idiots who cannot make intelligent decisions about the foods we eat. The arrogance is simply beyond belief. Remember, it's we who pay their salaries. But according to them, they are smarter than us, and we desperately need their explicit guidance in order to survive. They wish!

This comes at a time when restaurants have been hard hit by the recession. What does the council do to help them? Make it more costly to do business. A new cost that will be passed along to customers. And then there will be less customers, as prices go up. Add the Democratic scheme to raise liquor taxes next year, and you quickly realize that Montgomery County is a terrible place to do business.

Word is already hitting boardrooms and small businesses nationwide, in publications such as "Nation's Restaurant News," which quotes an industry spokesman as saying the council's action is "mind-boggling."

Mind boggling only if you don't know how these Big Government councilmembers think, and what their priorities are.

Remember, this legislation was "crafted," debated, and now passed, over two weeks in which the county's entire traffic computer system crashed (causing massive jams that reduced public safety) and in which the council failed to produce H1N1 vaccine for all residents.

Imagine, the county's roads in chaos, and public health and safety compromised, and Leventhal, Nancy Floreen, Marc Elrich, Roger Berliner, Duchy Trachtenburg, Phil Andrews, Nancy Navarro, and Valerie Ervin's top priority was knowing how many calories are in a Big Mac.

This vote may have ended several political careers.

And remember, these "calorie counts" and anything else you'd want to know about these foods are available FREE on the websites of McDonald's and every other restaurant chain.

Where are the condemnations from the county's Democrat-controlled Chamber of Commerce? Haven't heard from them recently. I thought they fight for business interests? Well, then, whose interests do they serve? Hmm......

And just think, on a day in which the nation was told that 1 in 4 children is going hungry, our County Council voted to make food more expensive in Montgomery County. Again!

It's outrageous.

Expect to find a "reprint the council press release" article in the Post that doesn't question the superior intelligence of our councilmembers' infinite wisdom in controlling the smallest details of our lives.

But it would be smart, as the Post reporters are in full ideological solidarity with them - and fight hard every day for their reelection - to ask George Leventhal and his colleagues what they're going to do.

What they're going to do, now that, after 8 years in high-salaried, taxpayer-funded office, they have finally achieved their highest priority: restaurant menu reform?

I think they just might say,

"WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!"

"Or, maybe just another vacation in Ocean City at taxpayer expense."