18 Mayors: Limit Use of Food Stamps to Buy Soda

NEW YORK (AP) — The mayors of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and 15 other cities are reviving a push against letting food stamps be used to buy soda and other sugary drinks. In a letter sent to congressional leaders on Tuesday, the mayors say it's "time to test and evaluate approaches limiting" the use of the subsidies for sugar-laden beverages, in the interest of fighting obesity and related diseases. "We need to find ways to strengthen the program and promote good nutrition while limiting the use of these resources for items with no nutritional value, like sugary drinks, that are actually harming the health of participants," Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose office released the letter, said in a statement. "Why should we continue supporting unhealthy purchases in the false name of nutrition assistance?" The other cities whose mayors signed the letter are Baltimore; Boston; Louisville, Ky.; Madison, Wis.; Minneapolis; Newark, N.J.; Oakland, Calif.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Providence, R.I.; Salt Lake City; San Francisco; St. Louis; and Seattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program, declined to comment on Tuesday's letter. Representatives for Republican House Speaker John Boehner and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, to whom the letter was addressed, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. The American Beverage Association, which has previously clashed with Bloomberg, said sugary drinks shouldn't be singled out as a cause of obesity. It called obesity "a complex health condition that affects Americans of all income levels." "Targeting struggling families who rely on (food stamps') vital safety net will not make America healthier or reduce government spending," the association, which represents the non-alcoholic, refreshment beverage industry, said in an emailed statement. Last year, more than 47 million Americans used food stamps — technically, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The benefits can't go to buy alcohol, cigarettes, hot food and some other items. Proposals to stop people from using the benefit to buy soda, candy and other items seen as unhealthy have been floated for decades; opponents have said such restrictions would be paternalistic and might discourage needy people from getting the subsidies. Bloomberg has gotten national attention for trying to bar eateries from selling sugary drinks in big sizes, and he has tried before to stop food stamps from going to buy soda. In 2010, he and then-Gov. David Paterson sought the USDA's permission to add sugary drinks to the list of prohibited food-stamp purchases for New York City residents. The agency declined. Earlier this month, Bloomberg wrote to Senate Agriculture Committee members to applaud a proposal to have the USDA conduct a two-state test of limiting the use of food stamps to buy unhealthy food and drinks. The proposal wasn't included in the version of the massive farm bill the Senate passed last week; the House is preparing to consider it this week. The mayors' letter also expressed concerns about the legislation's proposed cuts in funding for food stamps and suggested providing incentives to use them for fruits and vegetables. ___ Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz - See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/18-mayors-limit-use-food-stamps-buy-soda#sthash.wBYzD9z8.dpuf


You know what big government, syat out of our personal lives and that includes our eating habits. You have enough worry about than us drinking soda. Dang liberals and their ignorant agendas.

Bryan S. Meyer

Democrat: 'Morally outrageous' to ban late-term abortions

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday it is “particularly morally outrageous” to ban abortions after five months of pregnancy.
“It is morally outrageous, frankly,” Nadler said about the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (H.R. 1797), a bill that would ban abortions 20 weeks post-fertilization, or five months into pregnancy.
“Here we go again,” he said. “Every single year we have to go through the same nonsense with the same morally presumptuous, morally arrogant attitude that we know better. ‘We know better than women and their doctors. We know better about their health care. We know better about their moral choices in very personal decisions.’”

The House is set to vote Tuesday on the bill. Pro-abortion Democrats gathered on Capitol Hill to oppose the measure.“This bill is particularly morally outrageous,” Nadler said. “It is also particularly unconstitutional.”Nadler said Republicans pushing the bill are “morally arrogant people” who have “decided that their moral outlooks are more important” than a woman’s health. Nadler’s remarks came during a press conference to oppose the bill, led by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), co-chairs of the House Pro-Choice Caucus. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said a decision to have an abortion after five months should belong to women “and perhaps their spouses.” “It’s the same Republican men who say that the reach of government is just too great, who want to reach right inside women’s bodies and decide what they should do, what we should do, the kinds of decisions that should only belong to women and their doctors and perhaps their spouses,” she said. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said the bill is a sequel to the “Republican war on women.”Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) has said he sponsored the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in the wake of the Kermit Gosnell trial in Philadelphia, a late-term abortionist convicted of killing three babies who survived abortions outside of the womb, by cutting their spinal cords with scissors.
Franks argued that babies past 20 weeks gestation have the ability to feel pain, and thus abortions at this stage should be outlawed.“The trial of Kermit Gosnell exposed late abortions for what they really are: relocated infanticide,” Franks said earlier this month. “I pray we use this as a ‘teachable moment,’ in the words of President Obama, and can agree that, at the very least, we are better than dismembering babies who can feel every excruciating moment.”