Marshall Sanford: “this amendment simply gets at funding for the school breakfast pilot program. Mr. Chairman, this program was a 3- year…”

“this amendment simply gets at funding for the school breakfast pilot program. Mr. Chairman, this program was a 3- year authorization which basically chose six school districts from around the country to begin a pilot program looking at the link between eating breakfast and performance in school. Last year, $7 million went toward that cause, another $6 million is in this bill. This amendment goes after $6 million that is currently in the bill. I would simply say that common sense would dictate, not another $6 million, that there is directly a link between having breakfast and performance for a young person at school. It does not take $13 million to tell us that young folks will do better in school after breakfast than without breakfast. So I do not think this amendment is at all about the merits of the pilot program itself. Rather, I think that what this is about is do we want this pilot program to, since we know that is directly a link between one's performance and having breakfast, do we want to grow this into school breakfast for everybody around the country? For me, the answer would be no. Because if one actually looks at the numbers, it would cost a full $750 million a year to provide free breakfast for every school and every child in school districts across the country. To me, that says there is no free breakfast, there is no free lunch. $750 million is a lot of money.”