Feds to oversee vending machine Doritos

I wonder if anyone has a crystal ball in Tom Harkin’s office:

USDA to oversee school snack food: Senate ag chair

The U.S. Agriculture Department would be given the power to regulate all food sold in schools — including vending machine snacks — when Congress renews child nutrition programs, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee said on Tuesday.

Chairman Tom Harkin said he hopes the committee will start work on legislation to reauthorize school lunch programs in October or November, with a goal to conclude the work by the end of the year.

And no chips for you!

Agriculture Committee work on child nutrition will begin with a draft that gives the USDA the authority to oversee all food in schools, so nutrition programs are not “undermined” by junk food in vending machines, Harkin said at a confirmation hearing for the head of the USDA’s nutrition programs.

Purportedly because “Roughly 17 percent of school-age children are obese,” which of course the food censors consider is an “epidemic,” as if you caught obesity from sitting next to a fat person.

When I was in Catholic school I was a scrawny-thin kid, and every morning looked forward to a bag of potato chips and a small Coca-Cola during recess, which back then the nuns sold you for twenty-five cents. Now the Feds would probably raid the nuns over it.

Hat tip Roger, who starts by saying Watch that snack, Junior! (And, by the way, neither Roger nor I have caught the obesity “epidemic.”)

And also,
Wouldn’t an enterprising vendor set up a hot dog, chips and soda cart right outside the school perimeter and make a bundle? Or would the Feds implement “zero-tolerance” zones near schools, as they do with drugs, and send you to jail for having soda and chips?