Better school food

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 | 2 a.m.

Congress last week passed legislation intended to expand school lunch programs and improve the quality of school food.

The legislation was written in response to the call, issued by President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, to reduce childhood obesity and hunger. It now awaits the president’s signature.

Democratic Rep. George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, hailed the bill as a commitment to the nation’s children.

“In a country as great as ours, no child should go hungry and all children deserve healthy meals,” Miller said.

The bill is a step forward. It is the first bill in 30 years to make a sizable expansion in the program. Under it, an additional 115,000 students are expected to be eligible to receive subsidized meals.

The amount of money schools get per meal will go up, a boost beyond the typical cost-of-living increases. As well, the bill adds meals for after-school food programs to help poor students and increases overall spending on school lunches. It not only provides more meals, but it will also provide more healthy food in schools. Nutritional guidelines will be improved, and schools will be encouraged to use local produce in making meals. Schools will be prohibited from selling junk food in their cafeterias.

In the Senate, the bill passed unanimously in August, but it ended up stuck in the House, where Republicans tried to impose their narrow ideology on it. They called it a government overreach. John Kline, the ranking Republican member on the education committee, said his opposition to the bill came over “the proper role of the federal government and the unsustainable level of government spending.” In the end, only 17 Republicans voted to pass the bill.

Miller called it a “shame” that the majority of Republicans in the House “put politics ahead of our children’s health and voted against this bill.”

“They are standing on the wrong side of history,” Miller said. “I hope it doesn’t foreshadow what is in store in the next Congress.”

This bill could spell trouble for the way things will go when Republicans take control of the House of Representatives next month. Their stance shows how disingenuous they are. They complain about the budget, yet during George W. Bush’s presidency, they spent the nation into a huge deficit. Now, they won’t support spending on lunches for children who can’t afford milk, yet they’ll support tax breaks for the rich who can afford filet mignon.

More than 16 million children live in homes that struggle to put food on the table. Providing food for children who can’t afford it is critical. Children won’t learn much when they’re hungry. And it’s important that the nation’s children just aren’t being fed but that they’re also being fed healthy food.