The Kids Pay the Price
By Jeffrey Page
I came up with a great idea this week. I’m going to write a letter to certain members of the House of Representatives to ask that I be permitted to opt out of my obligation to pay income tax.
My reasoning is uncomplicated: Paying my tax has simply become a little too burdensome and I need a break.
Ridiculous you say? Well, if a House subcommittee can allow schools to get a waiver on their responsibility to serve more nutritious meals in their breakfast and lunch programs because healthier dishes and menus are too expensive, surely it can get me a waiver on my tax responsibility.
At issue here is the agriculture subcommittee’s vote to allow school districts to opt out of complying with the new nutrition rules the Obama Administration put into effect two years ago. In 2012, school cafeteria officials were told they had to ease up on salt, sugar and fats in the meals they prepare for the kids, and at the same time increase the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables. The use of potatoes is limited. In pasta dishes, schools are required to use whole-grain pasta. Similarly only low-fat milk can be used. See anything wrong with this?
These Obama rules – the first revision in a generation – would provide up-close nutrition education for the kids and cut into the growing epidemic of obesity in young children.
This doesn’t sound revolutionary. In fact, it sounds like what most responsible parents would serve their children.
But woe is us, some schools cried. In fact we can’t afford it. And they found a friend in Robert Aderholt, the chairman of the agriculture subcommittee, who suggested that making an apple available to a kid in first grade somehow is a complicated matter.
“Everyone supports healthy meals for children,” Aderholt told The Times. “But the bottom line is that schools are finding it’s too much, too quick.” Which is so much twaddle. I’d really like to see Aderholt address his shameless everyone-supports-healthy-meals line to a hungry student with a growling stomach and in poor health.
Can’t afford quality food for the children is about as legitimate an argument as a school district’s announcing that it can’t afford seat belts for its buses. I think the statement “Everyone supports seat belts on school buses but the bottom line is that schools are finding it’s too much, too quick” would be greeted with scorn.
But wait. Might Aderholt suggest that the federal government ought to pick up part of the cost of better food for breakfast and lunch?
He most certainly is not. Instead he says that the bill that goes to the full House of Representatives in a few weeks would contain measures to give up-against-it districts one year to get their cafeterias on track with the new rules.
Doubtless, Democrats will try and kill the changes, but they’re in the minority and however they choose to fight the new farm bill they’ll likely lose.
So the fights go on in Congress and once again, the constituency most at risk is the one with the softest voice. The children don’t win this fight.
I’ll let you when I get my income tax waiver.
Tags: Jeffrey Page, nutrition, Robert Aderholt, school lunch programs
