| It's amazing what happens when the First Lady writes a Washington Post op ed calling for the passage of a bill. The pathetically slow, broken Senate gets moving and actually passes it! At least, that's what happened in this case.
Blanche Lincoln's child nutrition bill just passed the Senate by unanimous consent. My god. The Republicans don't mind apologizing to BP or taking all kinds of other wildly unpopular positions, but even they won't vote against feeding hungry children.
The bill is flawed, primarily in its lack of funding for healthy school lunches, but it brings the National School Lunch Program far closer to perfection in just about every other way. The bill is not yet ready for Obama's desk. First, the full House needs to vote on Rep. George Miller's child nutrition bill, a bill that is slightly more generous than Lincoln's but still underfunded, and then the two chambers must reconcile their versions of the bill. We still don't know how the House bill will be paid for, as it must be before reaching the House floor. Thus, the questions remaining are: How much money will child nutrition receive, and where will it come from? The other question, of course, is whether the bill will pass before the deadline of September 30, but if the Senate has passed its version, I am hopeful. |
