by bookgrl

Today, the House passed the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.” It provides $4.5B to badly underfunded child nutrition programs. And unsurprisingly, 153 Republicans voted against it — after repeatedly trying to kill it.

Are Republicans nothing but obstruction-minded when it comes to anything associated with the Obama administration, as many Democrats have charged over the past two years? It certainly is beginning to look that way, especially after a bill that helps provide for a school lunch program for the nation’s schoolchildren was blocked by Republicans Thursday. The Michelle Obama-supported legislation, the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010” (S.3307), even passed the Republican hurdle of being paid for within the measure, according to OpenCongress.org. It eventually passed, but not without a lot of legislative wrangling and the Republicans mounting a last-minute vote to stop it.

And why was the GOP so eager to let America’s children go hungry?

“It’s not about making our children healthy and active,” Rep. John Kline (R) of Minnesota told Associated Press. “We all want to see our children healthy and active. This is about spending and the role of government and the size of government – a debate about whether we’re listening to our constituents or not.“

Yet John Kline, like John Boehner (who also voted for children to go hungry), wants to give tax cuts to rich people — which will cost the government about 200 times more than the bill to feed kids.

You’d think there’d be political hay to be made out of taking food out of hungry kids’ mouths so that millionaires can buy a few more baubles, wouldn’t you?