In the face of declining polling numbers, daily Democratic defections, and unfavorable rulings from the Senate Parliamentarian, the White House has devolved into all out panic mode. Politico reports:
President Barack Obama is delaying his trip to Indonesia and Australia by three days in hopes of finalizing a health care deal — and will scrap plans to bring along First Lady Michelle Obama and his two daughters, according to senior administration officials.
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By postponing his trip, Obama effectively gives the House some breathing room, preserving the hope that members will be able to depart the Capitol for their Easter break two weeks from today with a deal in their pockets.
Two things to remember about this latest development:
1) This just proves, again, how desperate the White House is for the House of Representatives to pass the Senate health care bill before the Easter recess. The Obama administration knows the American people hate Obamacare and that after a week listening to their constituents back home, there is no way the House will take up the Senate bill again.
2) President Obama has made many other attempts at influencing outcomes with his presence. He went to Copenhagen in November to lobby for the 2016 Olympics to come to Chicago, returning there again a month later to obtain a global climate treaty. The President also campaigned for Creigh Deeds to be governor of Virginia, Jon Corzine in New Jersey and for Martha Coakley’s campaign to become junior senator from Massachusetts. We fail to see why he believes his presence at the health care negotiations might have a different impact.
Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a campaign against childhood obesity, which is interesting considering President Barack Obama’s past statements on hunger in America.
In November of 2009 — only three short months ago — President Obama “reacted with concern” at a report that Americans are suffering “record levels” of “food insecurity,” according to a report from the Boston Globe. President Obama was quoted as saying that “it is particularly troubling that there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year.” In his statement, the President committed to “reversing the trend of rising hunger.”
“In addition, a bill I signed into law last month invests $85 million in new strategies to prevent children from experiencing hunger in the summer,” President Obama said.
President Obama’s remarks drastically differ from those of his wife, who recently stated that obesity is now a threat to national security since obesity is “one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.” CNSNews reports on how the First Lady plans to combat this national security threat:
Some of the goals include ending what Obama referred to as “food deserts” with a $400 million a year “Healthy Food Financing Initiative,” which will bring grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods and “help places like convenience stores carry healthier food options.”
Mrs. Obama also plans to have the government spend over $10 billion to feed even more children through government programs, under the Childhood Nutrition Act.
So which is it? Is the real problem here hunger, or is it obesity?
According to the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, “the major dietary problem facing poor Americans is too much, not too little, food.” He goes on to explain that while it would be nice for Americans to stop drinking so much soda pop, and start exercising more, “simply expanding the Food Stamp program would not accomplish that goal. What is required is a very difficult effort to change food preferences.”
Can a First Lady make a difference in changing America’s food preferences? If her greatest idea right now is expanding the Childhood Nutrition Act to feed even more children — in essence, expanding the Food Stamp program, making more food more available to already apparently obese children — it appears as though her plan is likely to fail. In fact, not only may it fail, it may also be a $10 billion waste of money for Americans everywhere, both obese and not.
Of course, the best part is that both President and Mrs. Obama have the same solutions to their respective problems with America’s food situation: spend more money, and make more people dependent on the government for food. Apparently with them every problem has the same solution.
At least they’re predictable.
Allie Winegar Duzett currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm