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The Spectacle Blog
Scroll through any part of the Democrats’ $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill and it won’t be long before you stumble upon an item that will have you scratching your head. I had a moment like that yesterday, when I reached page 11, and found a $35 million appropriation to the Secretary of Agriculture, “For necessary expenses of the Secretary to carry out demonstration projects to increase access to healthy foods through retail outlets.”
The allocation, it turns out, is part of a larger $400 million effort by the federal government, partnering the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Treasury, to attempt to make more fresh produce and healthy grocery stores available to underserved areas, dubbed “food deserts,” where fast food is the often the main option. The effort has been tied together with Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity crusade.
Under the program, the federal government helps provide financing to businesses (such as farmers and grocery stores). Here’s how the Obama administration described the Department of Agriculture’s role in a February press release:
USDA’s proposed funding level of $50 million will support more than $150 million in public and private investments in the form of loans, grants, promotion, and other programs that can provide financial and technical assistance to enhance access to healthy foods in under-served communities, expand demand and retail outlets for farm products, and increase the availability of locally and regionally produced foods. USDA has a solid track record of supporting successful farmers markets, and has also invested in grocery stores and creating agricultural supply chains for them, such as in the People’s Grocery project in Oakland, CA.
If you check out the People’s Grocery website, you’ll find that its slogan is, “Healthy Food For Everyone.” As described in its “About Us” page, this means: “We believe everyone should have access to healthy food, regardless of income. We call this ‘food justice’ - the belief that healthy food is a human right.”
When I asked the USDA for more information, they pointed me toward their website on “food deserts,” which highlights the type of grant opportunities available.
There are a number of things worth commenting on here. First and foremost, why should it be the role of government to subsidize private businesses to expand into these markets? Liberals could argue that the lack of healthy options in certain areas — not individual choices — are leading to rising obesity, which in turn leads to higher health care costs, which in turn leads to more government spending. But this is yet another reason to oppose national health care and another example of how big government begets bigger government — the more the government is involved in health care, the more people’s nutrition is in the interest of government, and the easier it is to justify programs such as these.
Yet even if you were to say that this is something worthwhile — which I would not say — why do we need to be spending this money at a time of massive deficits, and why is this part of a spending bill we’re told is an absolute emergency to pass by Saturday to keep the government open?
View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/16/the-omnibus-and-food-justice
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Kyle Levenick| 12.16.10 @ 4:11PM
Just to clarify, are you implying that individual choices can overcome lack of healthy food options for a family?
CalMark| 12.16.10 @ 4:31PM
"Where there's a will, there's a way."
Mom (we're probably talking inner city here, which means one-parent families, and the parent is female) could take the bus once a week, to a place that has nutritious food. Or better yet, a designated shopper goes and buys stuff for everyone--a coop.
There. Two options, just for starters. Anyone who says "It can't work," just wants to keep these people enslaved to government.
Kyle| 12.16.10 @ 4:42PM
Yes, those are certainly two examples that would work for specific people. I can list several instances where those wouldn't work if you'd like, but that wouldn't do anything for either of us. My comment was referring to whether Mr. Klein believes that individual choice can always triumph whatever obstacles are in the way of obtaining healthy food, even in instances where the obstacles are institutional or the costs of those choices outweigh the benefits.
Eric Cartman| 12.16.10 @ 4:49PM
If friends on mine in Alaska - literally in the middle of nowhere - can get "healthy food" to their "Food Desert", then lazy ass Liberals and hippies should be able to get "healthy food" also. Or, we can start the "Kyle Foodmobile" - with your money and time, of course - and you can take manna to the "Food Desert". What a crock of shit.
Kyle| 12.16.10 @ 4:54PM
Thanks for helping the discussion along.
Kyle| 12.16.10 @ 4:56PM
As a better medium, we are discussing this via Twitter, so I suppose there's no need to continue this thread. Thanks for the unnecessary hatred!
Eric Cartman| 12.16.10 @ 4:59PM
You're very welcome. Oh, and twitter! Gee, now there's a forum for discussing such weighty matter as lazy ass hippies unable to wake up out of their stupor long enough to grab a Twinkie. Again, what a crock of shit.
Adam| 12.16.10 @ 4:57PM
I can't eat snickers. They have peanuts and I'm allergic.
JEFFREY| 12.16.10 @ 5:17PM
Allergies aren't real. They're liberal excuses to raise health care costs for those of us who actually WORK. "I can't eat peanuts!" Waaah. Yes, you can. This is just another example in the wussification of America.
CalMark| 12.16.10 @ 4:58PM
"...those wouldn't work..."
Excuses, excuses.
Leftists ALWAYS have excuses. Then shoot down suggestions as though those were the ONLY solutions, and offer no alternatives. Then they counterattack with fancy language full of convoluted logic and big words.
This is simple stuff; it's not about curing the common cold or putting a man on the moon where desire does not equate to achievement. If they wanted to eat healthy, they'd find a way. Sorry, pal: these are human beings with intellects and free will, not laboratory rats.
Jody| 12.16.10 @ 4:15PM
If you don't have a chef in-house like flotus, will anyone know how to cook it after so many decades on fast food?
David W| 12.16.10 @ 4:24PM
Of course it begs the question - if there were no food deserts would the people who used to live in them be healthier? Would the people buy the fresh veggies and fruits (which often require some prep effort) or would they continue to buy the processed foods and white bread and bleached rice? There is that saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink". I know better, yet I still don't eat like I should. I try, but with work and lack of time (and I don't have a family to worry about) I still eat poorly and my waistline shows it. And I have grocery stores with walking distance and a short drive away.
I think this is just another boondoggle to spend tax dollars to assuage liberal guilt.
Ken (Old Texican)| 12.16.10 @ 4:28PM
Mr. Klein,
At the grocery store check out line, I have always been amazed at the pre-processed meals that are purchased with food stamps.
The premium on those "TV dinners" is something like 50% over the cost of the same food items in their off-the-shelf form.
Are the people on foodstamps simply ignorant, or are they just to lazy to cook and combine?
j | 12.16.10 @ 4:40PM
Ken, Both.
Same reason some women also need WIC. They forgot what breasts were really meant for.
Yeah| 12.16.10 @ 5:12PM
Surprised no one's figured the obvious point. If you were a White business man are you REALLY gonna open up a shiny new grocery store in the middle of one of these so-called "food deserts?" Why? So you can be robbed, stolen from, or mugged on your way to the car after locking up?
To me that's the bigger issue.
STEVEN| 12.16.10 @ 5:22PM
You mean people who are not white are the problem with health food options?
Yeah| 12.17.10 @ 11:03AM
Yeah that's exactly what I mean. Like all good lib/socialist gubmint programs, it will find that a majority of these so-called "food deserts" are located in poor, underclass, minority neighborhoods. And the reason will be because Rich Whitey wants to keep the minority man down by keeping him fat and lazy.
Isn't that the basic premise of most gubmint welfare programs? Not that folks are responsible for their own choices, good or bad, but that Rich Whitey is the root of all evil in America, right?
WALTER| 12.16.10 @ 5:28PM
It's like my dad always told me growing up: "Son, don't never trust one of 'them.'" And then he'd point to the refrigerator. I would smile and nod, but deep down I knew... I knew what we all know - that big government just doesn't work.
George S| 12.16.10 @ 5:55PM
Can't these people just eat their waffles without being pestered by government?
What liberals fail to realize (ignore?) is that if there was a demand, a supplier would jump in and offer it for sale. Even after all this money is spent on setting up inner city veggie farms, it doesn't mean that people will respond. So what to do? Maybe restrict available choices, demonize the capitalist fast food companies that meet a demand, or just make it a crime to eat certain things (precedent: smoking). This is really what the left wants in the first place -- sending you to prison for failing to be controlled.
As always -- whether it's talk radio or junk food -- the lack of "choices" cited by liberals is because the market is failing to provide what people really want so they have no choice but to listen to Limbaugh or eat a cheeseburger. Stop us before we hurt ourselves, Ms. Obama.
Skandia Recluse| 12.16.10 @ 5:58PM
Isn't this similar to what the Community Reinvestment act was intended to do for home ownership and access to home loans in underserved communities?
How did that work out? Especially after the Department of Justice threatened banks with litigation if those banks refused to loan money to designated communities? That worked out well, didn't it?