WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama's campaign for healthier school lunches could be revived in Congress after two key Democrats said they will drop opposition to using funding from food stamps to pay for it.
Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts have said they will support House passage of a $4.5 billion child nutrition bill that passed the Senate earlier this year. Backed by some anti-hunger groups, the two lawmakers led opposition to passage of that version before the election because it is partially paid for with $2.2 billion taken from future funding for food stamp programs.
Since then, a push from the White House, which promised to help restore the food-stamp money, and political reality after the midterm elections — the bill would probably not fare as well when Republicans take over the House in January — appear to have softened opposition.
DeLauro said Tuesday that she is willing to support the legislation, which would improve lunches in schools and expand feeding programs for low-income students, with the food stamp cuts because Democrats will have a better opportunity when Congress returns to use another piece of legislation to try to restore the money and increase access to feeding programs for hungry kids.
"The view was that before the election, we couldn't get (those) two pieces we wanted to get," she said.
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3 comments:
Lets face it, free and reduced lunch programs are not ever going to go away in our public school system. Kids should only be offered healthy options. We already have a rampant problem in this nation with overweight/obesity, why continue down the path that'll only lead to more of it? Various districts and schools have shown no difference in prices, so why not?
just try to Palin strategy and give em all cookies
Only in America do we find "poor" people who "need" access to food via food stamps and free lunches who are morbidly obese.
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