This Is No Way To Fund Pet Projects

Yesterday The New York Post reported that money will be taken out of the food stamp program to fund Michelle Obama’s pet project, Let’s Move.

The article reports:

On Nov. 1, sizable cuts were gouged into the federal food-stamp program (or, as it’s now called, SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which feeds 47.6 million people, or nearly one in six Americans. In the city, 1.9 million folks get the bulk of their Jell-O and Campbell’s Soup from stamps.

But news has spread among the poor, like leafy green vegetables, that it wasn’t heartless Republicans who triggered the cuts.

Rather, some of the food-stamp cash was snatched to pay for Michelle Obama’s pet project, Let’s Move. What?

It’s come to this. Some 76 million meals a year will vanish from this city — poof! — partly because the president diverted money from SNAP to the first lady’s signature program, part of her Let’s Move anti-obesity initiative — the bean-sprout-heavy, $4.5 billion Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

This project will not create healthy, hunger-free kids. Instead it will create more hungry kids. Another problem with the Let’s Move project is that the school children don’t like Michelle Obama’s healthy lunches. It seems to me that it would be a good idea to mix healthy lunches with things children like to eat for a successful program. However, in no way is it appropriate to take money away from a program that provides children with meals at home that they will eat and invest that money into lunches they will not eat at school.

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