Massachusetts Outlaws School Bake Sales

It’s over. The whole American experiment. Over. Done.

The place where a stamp tax started a full blown revolution has now banned local school groups from selling tasty cakes to make a quick buck. Parents are angry, but no one has assembled the tar and feathers appropriate to the occasion. They probably banned tar for having too many calories.

Bake sales, the calorie-laden standby cash-strapped classrooms, PTAs and booster clubs rely on, will be outlawed from public schools as of Aug. 1 as part of new no-nonsense nutrition standards, forcing fundraisers back to the blackboard to cook up alternative ways to raise money for kids.

At a minimum, the nosh clampdown targets so-called “competitive” foods — those sold or served during the school day in hallways, cafeterias, stores and vending machines outside the regular lunch program, including bake sales, holiday parties and treats dished out to reward academic achievement. But state officials are pushing schools to expand the ban 24/7 to include evening, weekend and community events such as banquets, door-to-door candy sales and football games.

You don’t have to see stats to know that bake sales aren’t contributing to obesity.

The state weighs in with typical government genius.

“We’re not trying to get into anyone’s lunch box,” Smith told the Herald.

No, that’s being saved for next week after they get away with this. Plus, North Carolina already beat them to it.

“We know that schools need those clubs and resources. We want them to be sure and have them, but to do them a different way. We have some incredibly innovative, talented folks in schools who are already doing some impressive things, who serve as incontrovertible evidence that, yes, you can do this, and be successful at it.”

State Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln), chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Public Health, said the problem of overweight children has reached “crisis” proportions.

And bake sales are contributing to that?

“If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo said.

They’re not your kids. Banning selling cakes won’t make them skinny up.

“But,” she added, “this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long healthy life.”

It’s ironic how many things we hear done “for the children,” yet the one thing never done for the children which would do the most good is strengthen the traditional family. Never happens.