Bureaucrats and School Lunches

It has become clearer than ever that Washington is out of touch with America. Too many bureaucrats and politicians don't understand the effects of the rules and laws they create.

Take the National School Lunch Program for example. For the 2012-2013 school year, the Obama Administration began implementing new nutritional standards for school lunches. These rules coming down from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are making it harder for school districts to do their job, leading to increased costs and, in some cases, hungry children.

In fact, the USDA admits that complying with these rules will add $3.2 billion to school meal costs over five years. The end result, according to the School Nutrition Association, is that one million fewer kids already participate in the program after just one year.

There have been a number of attempts to address these overly burdensome regulations. For instance, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, made two simple recommendations: permanently remove the weekly meat and grain maximums for school lunches and give flexibility to comply with calorie ranges for growing children. Unfortunately, Washington still isn't listening.

That is why I recently helped introduce the School Nutrition Fairness Act (H.R. 3686). This bill forces the White House and USDA to comply with the same nutrition standards it is forcing on kids in school. Any meal – from those served in the USDA cafeterias to State Dinners at the White House – must meet their own nutrition standards.

I believe the most effective way to deliver the message to politicians and unelected bureaucrats about their harmful actions is to have them experience firsthand the regulations they approve. Maybe then they'll consider some commonsense solutions.