WASHINGTON — A child-nutrition bill that was a centerpiece of Michelle Obama’s healthful eating campaign stalled in the House on Wednesday after anti-hunger groups and more than 100 Democrats protested the use of food-stamp dollars to pay for it.
The bill, passed unanimously in the Senate this summer, mandates strict nutrition standards for all food sold in schools and boosted spending on school meals and other nutrition programs by $4.5 billion over 10 years — the first increase since 1973. The measure was among some of the child-nutrition programs that must be reauthorized every five years.
Anti-hunger advocates denounced the increased spending, which was to be funded in part by $2 billion in cuts to the federal food stamp program, or SNAP. The reduction, according to the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center, would have cut $59 from a typical family of four’s monthly food budget. Calling such cuts egregious, 106 six Democrats wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, in protest.
“That additional amount of food stamps is absolutely fundamental to children and families’ well-being,” said Jim Weil, FRAC’s president. “People who belittle that are ignoring at their peril what is happening to the 41 million poorest people in the country.”
Casting the funding as cuts to the SNAP program is a mischaracterization, public health advocates say. The $2 billion would have come from a temporary increase to SNAP that was passed in 2009 to cover a predicted inflation of food prices that never materialized.
