Congress has its priorities right.....NOT

[WillBrink]

With all the problem this country faces, THIS is what Congress concerns itself with. I can't tell you how disgusted I am on so many levels. By an act of Congress, pizza is now a vegetable for school lunches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pizza is a Vegetable? Congress Defies Logic, Betrays Our Children

If there were any lingering doubts as to whom our elected representatives really work for, they were put to rest Tuesday when Congress announced that frozen pizza was a vegetable. The United States Congress voted to rebuke new USDA guidelines for school lunches that would have increased the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in school cafeterias and instead declared that the tomato paste on frozen pizza qualified it as a vegetable.

For this we can thank large food companies -- in this case ConAgra and Schwan -- which pressured Congress to comply with their financial interests. It simply doesn't suit the makers of frozen pizza, chicken nuggets and tater tots for schools to offer real food in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Many conservative lawmakers are also insisting that the federal government shouldn't tell people what to eat. This is the same argument Sarah Palin used against Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign to the rallying cry, "nanny-state."

But the government clearly does not control the food Americans eat. Corporations do. In this case ConAgra and Schwan are quite literally determining what the vast majority of our school children will be fed in school cafeterias: A veritable chemical concoction made to look like pizza. These are the ingredients for the "traditional 4x6 school pizza" made by ConAgra:

Cont:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-wartman/pizza-is-a-vegetable_b_1101433.html

[montanadave]

I heard one person defend this decision by saying, "If we don't serve what the kids want, they won't eat it."

They're ****ing children! When I was a kid and didn't like what was on my plate, I got told, "Sorry to hear that. Dinner's in another 4-5 hours, maybe you'll like that better."

If we're serving meals to kids at school and those meals are heavily subsidized by the government, the menu ought to be set by nutritionists and health care specialists, not the frozen food lobbyists and ten-year-olds.

These ****ers in Congress should be prosecuted for accepting bribes when they take money from every special interest group under the sun. Our government is for sale to the highest bidder. Without serious campaign finance reform, it's game over.

[WillBrink]

I heard one person defend this decision by saying, "If we don't serve what the kids want, they won't eat it."

They're ****ing children! When I was a kid and didn't like what was on my plate, I got told, "Sorry to hear that. Dinner's in another 4-5 hours, maybe you'll like that better."

Never knew what a "picky eater" was 'till I was an adult. In my house, didn't like what was served, tough sh*%, you didn't eat. I'll eat damn near anything if I have to. It was made clear to me early on, what was served what what you ate and going to bed hungry, the other option.


If we're serving meals to kids at school and those meals are heavily subsidized by the government, the menu ought to be set by nutritionists and health care specialists, not the frozen food lobbyists and ten-yeat-olds.

100% agreed. It's disgusting.


These ****ers in Congress should be prosecuted for accepting bribes when they take money from every special interest group under the sun. Our government is for sale to the highest bidder. Without serious campaign finance reform, it's game over.

When you add this brilliant move to the fact the entire country is in shambles, it boggles the mind.

[Alric]

What House Bill was this anyway?

Edit: Hmmm. Looks like it might be related to House Resolutions 467 or 2112. Its supposed to be part of a recently passed spending resolution or bill.

[NWPilgrim]

For one thing I do not understand why so many kids need a school provided lunch. I went twelve years one a peanut butter and jam sandwich, piece of fruit, carrot or celery sticks, chips and maybe a cookie or something with a carton of milk.

Like others have said, around home it was eat what is served or wait until the next meal. I was a bit of a picky eater and learned to wait. I never starved. As an active kid meals were not that big of deal, I was outside playing and meals were a an inconvenient interruption to play and exploration. Nowadays it seems meals are all important to kids and rarely do many of them get off the sofa to do anything.

Raise the price of school lunches and provide simple basic food groups. Don't let kids pick what they want. Serve them a simple complete meal if they pay for it. If they don't like it, BRING YOUR OWN LUNCH FROM HOME!

And CONGRESS SHOULD GET THE HELL OUT OF DC AND QUIT WASTING OUR MONEY. Why do we need NEW laws every year for the last 210+ years?

Pass five more laws and then go home:
1. Can't spend more than current year revenues, and after that automatic cuts to "entitlements", defense, and interest (default) occurs. I think I could live without the government functionaning for an extended period.

2. All laws with associated spending mandates automatically sunset after 6 years.

3. Super majority needed for any spending or taxing increases.

4. Congress to vote on laws only every 3 years. They can convene in between to discuss, but voting can only happen for 6 months every three years. No emergency session except for imminent attack. Ideally they would discuss for a year and half, vote in the second year, then take a year off and give us all a vacation from their lunacy.

5. Eliminate the Federal Reserve and make Congress do its Constitutional job to manage the credit (should be rarely needed) and currency of the nation (should be easy if we are not borrowing trillions of dollars).

[LowSpeed_HighDrag]

For one thing I do not understand why so many kids need a school provided lunch. I went twelve years one a peanut butter and jam sandwich, piece of fruit, carrot or celery sticks, chips and maybe a cookie or something with a carton of milk.

Like others have said, around home it was eat what is served or wait until the next meal. I was a bit of a picky eater and learned to wait. I never starved. As an active kid meals were not that big of deal, I was outside playing and meals were a an inconvenient interruption to play and exploration. Nowadays it seems meals are all important to kids and rarely do many of them get off the sofa to do anything.

Raise the price of school lunches and provide simple basic food groups. Don't let kids pick what they want. Serve them a simple complete meal if they pay for it. If they don't like it, BRING YOUR OWN LUNCH FROM HOME!

And CONGRESS SHOULD GET THE HELL OUT OF DC AND QUIT WASTING OUR MONEY. Why do we need NEW laws every year for the last 210+ years?

Pass five more laws and then go home:
1. Can't spend more than current year revenues, and after that automatic cuts to "entitlements", defense, and interest (default) occurs. I think I could live without the government functionaning for an extended period.

2. All laws with associated spending mandates automatically sunset after 6 years.

3. Super majority needed for any spending or taxing increases.

4. Congress to vote on laws only every 3 years. They can convene in between to discuss, but voting can only happen for 6 months every three years. No emergency session except for imminent attack. Ideally they would discuss for a year and half, vote in the second year, then take a year off and give us all a vacation from their lunacy.

5. Eliminate the Federal Reserve and make Congress do its Constitutional job to manage the credit (should be rarely needed) and currency of the nation (should be easy if we are not borrowing trillions of dollars).

Stop. Just stop that right now. You are making far too much sense and the thought police have been dispatched to your location.

[Clint]

Lunch room pizza is not that good to begin with.

Calling it a "vegetable" is a crime against humanity.