If you are a food stamper, no soda pop for you.NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday sought federal permission to debar 1.7 million people, who get food stamps, from exchanging them for soda pop. This is being seen as an aggressive push by the mayor to counter childhood obesity. Couch potatoes got a round of respite after an attempt to slap a tax on sugared drinks failed. After this, Bloomberg is trying to get the US Department of Agriculture that regulates the food-stamp programme, to say no to soda.
The food stamp uproar threatened to boil over when Newt Gingrich, ex-House Speaker branded the Democrats as the ” party of food stamps”, and pitched for the GOP as the one and only” party of pay checks.”
Social minders said that this was a despicable effort from Michael Bloomberg to police what you eat and drink, especially if you depend on the state for food stamps. They said he should keep his self-righteousness to himself.
The tactics of the Democrat nanny state which had kid gloves on for the swish set, but treated the working class like dirt, are being widely deplored.
Newt Gingrich meanwhile made hay while the soda pop furore went on, saying that Americans should count on pay checks from the Republicans, as they were the party teeming with opportunity, rather than look out for food stamp doles with strings attached, handed out by the liberal Democrats.
Bloomberg’s proposal was sniffed at cautiously by public health offitials looking to curb obesity and diabetes in children. George Hacker, who is the senior policy adviser of the project for health promotion led by the Centre for Science dedicated to Public Interest, advised a more prudent path in launching educational campaigns to wean people and food stampers off sugared drinks, rather than shoving healthy food down people’s throats.
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