As early as tomorrow, the House is poised to reauthorize the Childhood Nutrition Act, which was passed by the Senate before the midterms, to preserve the legislation as is. Of course, the Senate-passed version offset the cost of increased spending on school lunches and other food programs by ending the increased spending on food stamps in the stimulus package earlier than it would have ended otherwise. That has angered anti-hunger advocates and progressive representatives like Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. When I spoke to DeLauro a couple of weeks ago, she said she was certain the act would pass the House because no one wants to lose it, but she said she and others would work to extract a promise from the White House to replace the lost food-stamp funds. "The hope is that, that the White House ... understand[s] about not tampering with the food-stamp benefits as well, because of the increasing number of people dependent on food stamps."
The bigger question is why a Senate full of Democrats saw a meager increase in the amount given to families on food stamps -- meager in terms of the federal budget but the difference of a table full of food for hungry families -- as a prime source of extra funds. They've tied their hands behind their backs playing by Pay-Go rules and trade one progressive goal for another, whether there's conservative pressure on them to do so or not. That's why progressives are angry at the administration. If one hand takes away what the other gives, there isn't a lot of progress.
-- Monica Potts
