Let Them Eat the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Before Marie Antoinette “Farmer in the Dell” Obama’s even had a chance to teach low-income obese children how to sow and harvest and eat like so many little Johnny Appleseeds, her “Let’s Move” initiative may lighten them up perforce, as Dem legislators find they are obliged to slash the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, to pay for it.

“Food stamps have made multiple appearances on the fiscal chopping block because Democrats have few other places to turn to offset the cost of legislation,” The Hill reports. Of course, not everyone is on board: “This is one of the more egregious cases of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and is a vote we do not take lightly,” say Jim McGovern and Keith Ellison. Still, increases in funding for food stamps that were part of the stimulus

were already scheduled to phase out over time. The changes proposed in the state aid and nutrition bills would simply cut off that increase early, in March 2014. Because the cuts would not take effect for more than three years, Democratic leaders have voiced the hope that they will be able to stop them in future legislation.

Stop them in future legislation . . . or not. Three years is a long time, especially these days, especially for the Dems. Stamping out childhood obesity—and food stamps along with it—could have no role to play at all in their struggle to get back into Congress. As for Marie and her courtiers, they, too, may well have moved on to greener pastures—and trimmer children.