Across America, for 30 million schoolchildren implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is working. Schools are literally stepping up to the plate with a plate of healthier food. Indeed, for school lunches in Texas, 99 percent of Texas school districts are successfully serving meals that meet strong nutritional standards. In most of the schools I visit, 99 percent is an A-plus. First Lady Michelle Obama has provided impressive leadership in getting students, families, all of us, to pay a little more attention to food quality, to encourage kids to be more physically active, to get moving, and to grow up healthy. Active, healthy kids do better in school, and they grow up to be more productive citizens who can help in moving our country forward. Today's bill presents the question of whether we are to wave good-bye with a waiver to healthy school lunch standards. This bill that we are about to consider is not the only place where unhealthy congressional action lurks. At the very same moment that the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee was weakening school nutrition standards with a waiver, the House Ways and Means Committee, on which I serve, approved a bill to expand a tax subsidy for ``apparently wholesome food.'' That sounds good. The only problem is that the statutory definition of ``apparently wholesome food'' does not actually limit itself to the wholesome.…
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