Jonathan Cohn writes about the increasingly absurd protests from the right against first lady Michelle Obama's healthy kids initiative, reignited because of an IRS decision making breast pumps a deductible medical expense with which Obama likely had nothing to do. As I've said before, nanny state arguments become a little ridiculous when we're talking about the things the government already does for children. Cohn thinks the right is incensed because Obama is suggesting the government actually helps people.
But I'd also say there's another element. The initiatives Obama is taking on are important social-justice issues. Healthier school lunches and more school meals throughout the day mostly benefit poor children. That's especially true when one considers the pieces of the Childhood Nutrition Act that will make it easier for families to enroll in the free school lunch program.
Breast-feeding is much more common among college-educated women, and those same women are much more likely to have a job and health insurance with benefits for breast feeding. Making the breast pump tax deductible extends the benefit down the income ladder slightly -- though not, of course, far enough -- and has the more important effect of establishing breast feeding as an act with medical benefits. Government involvement always takes the shade, for conservatives, of something that helps poor people, and it raises objections, especially because it might help poor people of color. Those farthest to the right associate government benefits with helping poor people of color, and we can't ever get away from that.
