Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4800, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4457, America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2014; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4453, S Corporation Permanent Tax Relief Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, across America, for 30 million schoolchildren implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is working. Schools are literally stepping up to the plate with a plate of healthier food. Indeed, for school lunches in Texas, 99 percent of Texas school districts are successfully serving meals that meet strong nutritional standards. In most of the schools I visit, 99 percent is an A-plus.
First Lady Michelle Obama has provided impressive leadership in getting students, families, all of us, to pay a little more attention to food quality, to encourage kids to be more physically active, to get moving, and to grow up healthy. Active, healthy kids do better in school, and they grow up to be more productive citizens who can help in moving our country forward.

Today's bill presents the question of whether we are to wave good-bye with a waiver to healthy school lunch standards. This bill that we are about to consider is not the only place where unhealthy congressional action lurks. At the very same moment that the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee was weakening school nutrition standards with a waiver, the House Ways and Means Committee, on which I serve, approved a bill to expand a tax subsidy for ``apparently wholesome food.'' That sounds good. The only problem is that the statutory definition of ``apparently wholesome food'' does not actually limit itself to the wholesome. It includes Halloween candy, Twinkies, Pop Rocks, stale potato chips, and other expired junk food, all of which receive a taxpayer subsidy. I think that is a little hard to stomach.

In a Nation where one-third of our children are overweight or obese, we should neither be subsidizing junk food nor repackaging healthy school meal standards into less healthy meals.

We are already spending in America an estimated $245 billion every year on diabetes. Rates of dietary-related Type 2 diabetes are skyrocketing among children and young adults. Since many of our children consume up to half of their daily calories at school through the school lunch and school breakfast programs, their health depends upon the nutritional quality of the food they are served.

Today, we should not take a giant step backwards. Let's join against this push to lower standards for our Nation's children. They deserve the healthiest future possible.

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