I encourage you to keep that up. We have got to meld these two together...

But it gives us, I think, an added advantage of being able to seek out the solutions to that issue.

Senator Harkin has recommended for all school foods.

I will tell you, just from a USDA perspective, we are encouraged by the number of grants, loans, business activity in our rural development portfolios.

The Obama administration takes this opportunity very seriously.

Chairman Harkin did a tremendous job, along with the staff, in really teeing up what we need to do on child nutrition.

It seems to me that the essential underlying feature of having a healthy country is having healthy kids.

We do know about the extreme connection between obesity and health.

We need to recommit ourselves to having schools be commercial-free zones for kids.

Fortunately, the Congress had the wisdom to include in the Recovery and Reinvestment Act more resources for SNAP, more resources for food assistance.

This isn't just about human services. It isn't just about the moral responsibility we have. It is actually good economics in tough times.

The President, the First Lady, and I are committed to combating hunger and providing healthier foods to our nation's children.

The scale of these programs means that reforms can have a major impact on tens of millions of school children.

I view this as an important downpayment on the priorities mentioned above.

I think it is incumbent upon us to work with schools to create standards that basically define the nutritional value of things that will be sold.

The problems that we face and are challenged today to address through this reauthorization process are significant and critical to the future of this country.

We are looking forward to bringing that to fruition in the bill shortly after the new year so that we can move forward.

We obviously would work with Congress if you direct that this is something that is a priority and that you believe that it needs to be expanded and you provide us the legislative authority.