Farm Bill-Inspired Food Fight

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported a student food fight in a Plum School District (Pennsylvania) cafeteria when the kids revolted against the federally-mandated contents of their lunch plates.

From the article:

"...USDA guidelines announced in January require any school that participates in the federally subsidized National School Lunch Program to reduce the number of calories in a meal based on the age of the students and offer more whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Schools also are required to eliminate trans fats and reduce sodium content, and each student must take a fruit and a vegetable as part of any federally subsidized meal."

Among other motives, the food nannies at the Department of Agriculture may just have been following up on a little-noticed feature of the current farm bill which expanded crop subsidies and allowed politicians to harvest campaign contributions from new segments of American agri-businesses.

Crop subsidies are a form of agri-socialism that's been around since the collectivists of the New Deal began their perverse tinkering with farm policy in the 1930s.

In the last version of the bill, delayed from 2007 and finally passed by both houses over President George W. Bush's veto in 2008, subsidies were expanded from row crops to include subsidies for specialty crops: fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and nursery crops -- you know, the things the kids don't like and won't eat.

The students in the Plum district are unwitting -- and unhappy -- victims of congressional avarice, and the irresistible temptation for Obama administration bureaucrats to control the lives of others.

On a side note: On July 25, 2012, Liz Peek wrote at the Financial Times about the latest Senate attempt to pass a farm bill: "The farm package is yet another 1,000-page atrocity as packed with goodies as a stuffed olive. There are 1,063 lobbyists feverishly pressing their case. In 2008, influence-peddlers spent $173.5 million on the farm bill - more than on Obamacare; this year the cash bash could be even higher."

Who, really, will this information surprise?