North Carolina reporter Sara Burrows broke the story about the four-year-old whose home-packed lunch didn’t meet the USDA’s guidelines. She appeared on Fox today with Megyn Kelly. According to Burrows, the inspector who ruled against the four-year-old’s turkey sandwich was from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Kelly found that they are paid for out of President Obama’s stimulus bill.
KELLY: Who is looking at her lunch, and the lunches of the other children?
BURROWS: We’re still trying to determine exactly who the state employee was. We do know that it was an agent from the Department of Health and Human Services.
KELLY: At the North Carolina level.
BURROWS: Right, at the state level. And according to the school principal, a division within the department comes to the school every year to conduct an evaluation related to the More at Four pre-kindergarten program. And as part of the evaluation, they look at students lunches that are brought from home to make sure that they meet USDA guidelines. And this school, we’re told, lost points this year because too many children were bringing their lunches from home and they did not meet, according to this inspector, the USDA guidelines. And this school, we are told, lost too many points because too many kids were bringing their lunches and they did not meet, according to this inspector, the USDA guidelines. And I’ve been trying to determine from the department this morning, who exactly that agent was, and they said that they are trying to get to the bottom of it.
KELLY: This More at Four, it’s a state program but it’s funded by federal stimulus dollars, and the schools now need to comply with this USDA guidelines and so forth.
Video at the link. In the aftermath of the stimulus bill’s passage, the Obama administration went about claiming that the money was being used to save jobs for firefighters, police, and teachers, essential services (while they were also doling out piles of money to Solyndras and unions). They never told us that it would be used to put the state between parents and their kindergarteners’ mouths. We keep having to pass bills to find out what’s in them.
In addition to our federal tax dollars paying for a police state activity that kings would have shied away from in ages past, there are a couple of other takeaways from this episode. One, there were several kids involved, not just the one, and these inspections have been going on for a while. But only one parent saw fit to take any action, and even that parent is doing her best to keep her name out of the press due to her fear of reprisal. It’s not hard to figure out why other parents haven’t stood up with her.
As I wrote yesterday, fear is the jackboot government’s ally. Citizens are supposed to be the bosses of government workers like these inspectors, the local principal, and so forth on up to the president. But the attitude is one of widespread subservience.
There is no fricking reason why federal tax money should be going to pay for local firefighters, police, and teachers. If they are, then something is seriously wrong—mostly, but not entirely, the acceptance of “rebate government,” where we give the federal government too much and then beg for it back in order to be able to fund services which should be locally funded.
I’ve been saying that same thing for a long time. It’s sad that cities have turned into wards of the federal government bc they’ve accepted stimulus funding or grants. It’s happening to my city (where I’m a native) and boy when the gravy train runs out there’s freak-out sessions broadcast on the news–it’s embarrassing!!
We can act at home right now to help stop this dependency on the federal government. Here in Grants Pass, Oregon, we’re getting $530,000 in federal money to build 5 (yes, five) bus shelters for a tiny local line that serves tens of people a day. In Oregon, we don’t even carry umbrellas! This is insane, and I wrote the local paper to say so. I was also part of a pilot group that opposed state and federal grant money to make unneeded airport improvements, part of which would have greatly benefited a private company.
Stand up at home and get your community away from the trough!
Yeah, and the amount of money that local governments gets back is far, far less than what was put in. Where did the rest of it go? To corrupt politicians, “administrators” of the federal program (that’s how Obummer wants to create jobs), and other programs most citizens have ever heard of or benefited from. Then they want to raise taxes to do even more of the same type of thing!
Go to any of the graves of our founding fathers and you’ll hear a whirring sound…..They’re spinning in their graves!
Come on November!!!!!
Just like cider, our soft tyranny has gone hard. Less than 38 weeks until the election.
It is frightening how pliable and timid the population has become. It reminds me of that old Nazi thing. First they came for my child’s lunch but I didn’t speak out because I don’t have children.
Our NC governor (who is not running for reelection. Hmm, I wonder why) thinks the more at four program is the best program ever.
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924)
Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.
Vladimir Lenin
It is no surprise to see all this corruption … we have a mass media that is complicit in furthering it. Until we can gain the integrity of that media back, we are doomed to see this thing grow worse and worse, until it reaches the same point as it did in NAZI Germany, then the very same mass media that turned a blind eye to these things will become no longer valuable, and will be dealt with the same way the population is that they are thwarting now ……
Things sure have changed since I was a school kid.
I got a kick out of the stink raised when Newt suggested that elementary school kids work for pay in school cafeterias or as janitors. The libs decried such a notion as child slavery. When I was 10 years old (1972), there were no free school lunches, but a cafeteria hot lunch was only 50 cents. My parents weren’t poor, but they also weren’t rich. So in order to save the 50 cent cost of my lunch each school day, they made me work as a school cafeteria dishwasher during the 30 minute lunch period so that I would get a free lunch. I worked for the equivalent of $1/hour at the age of 10.
If a 4-year old is given a tray of food to replace their sack lunch and does not eat very much from the tray, our authoritarian government will then start force-feeding the kid. Our nanny state knows best. If they can tell a kid what to eat at school, there is nothing to stop the government from mandating what they eat at home … and send the food police to the home to enforce their regulations.
FROM WHAT I READ THAT WAS PACKED IN THE CHILDS LUNCH,MATCHED EVERYTHING THE FOOD POLICE SAID THEY HAVE TO EAT.. AND AS THEY TOOK HER LUNCH AND GAVE HER THE SCHOOLS LUNCH SH ONLY ATE ONE ITEM.. THAT’S REAL SMART OF THE GOVERNMENT.. ADDITIONALLY THE SCHOOL AND THE FOOD POLICE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE CHILDREN HAVE BEEN ORDERED, BY DOCTORS, TO EAT AND NOT EAT.. SUBJECT TO THEIR ALLERGIES AND DIABETES.. REAL SMART PEOPLE..