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Michelle Obama’s $400 Million ‘Food Desert’ Scam
CNS News ^ | 10/27/2010 | Terence P Jeffrey

Posted on 11/08/2010 4:53:13 AM PST by IbJensen

First Lady Michelle Obama has called on Congress to create a $400 million-a-year program to encourage the establishment of supermarkets in places she calls “food deserts.”

The situation in these “food deserts,” as Mrs. Obama describes it, is quite dire indeed. American children are growing fat because their parents cannot get to a supermarket—to buy fruits and vegetables—without undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi. As a consequence, food-desert-dwelling children are forced to eat fast food and junk procured at chain restaurants and convenience stores.

In a March 10 speech, the first lady painted a sad picture of their plight. “Right now, 23.5 million Americans, including 6.5 million kids, live in what we call ‘food deserts’—these are areas without a supermarket,” she explained. “And as a result these families wind up buying their groceries at the local gas station or convenience store, places that offer few, if any, healthy options.”

She offered a solution. “Let’s move to ensure that all families have access to healthy, affordable foods in their community,” she said. “(W)e’ve set an ambitious goal here: to eliminate food deserts in America within seven years.

“To do that,” she said, “we’re creating a Healthy Food Financing Initiative that’s going to invest $400 million a year—and leverage hundreds of millions more from the private sector—to bring grocery stores to underserved areas and help places like convenience stores carry healthier options.”

Pushing this $400 million food-desert-eradication plan became a standard part of Mrs. Obama’s stump speech.

In February, she promoted it in a Philadelphia neighborhood she said had just emerged from a 10-year period without a supermarket—thanks to subsidies from the enlightened state government of Pennsylvania.

“For 10 years, folks had to buy their groceries at places like convenience stores and gas stations, where usually they don’t have a whole lot of fresh food, if any, to choose from,” said Mrs. Obama. “So that means if a mom wanted to buy a head of lettuce to make a salad in this community, or have some fresh fruit for their kids’ lunch, that means she would have to get on a bus, navigate public transportation with the big bags of groceries, probably more than one time a week, or, worse yet, pay for a taxicab ride to get some other supermarket in another community, just to feed her kids.”

Congress left town for the November election without having approved any fiscal 2011 spending bill. So, as of yet, it is uncertain whether Mrs. Obama will get her $400 million-per-year to subsidize supermarkets in “food deserts.” The agricultural bill that has been working its way through Congress includes only a $40 million earmark for the program.

But does it deserve a single penny?

In the 2008 farm bill, Congress mandated that the department conduct a $500,000 study of “food deserts.” The study—“Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences”—was published in June 2009.

The report demonstrates that Mrs. Obama’s depiction of American “food deserts” is fatuous at best. Lower-income Americans live closer to supermarkets than higher-income Americans.

“Overall, median distance to the nearest supermarket is 0.85 miles,” said the Agriculture Department report. “Median distance for low-income individuals is about 0.1 of a mile less than for those with higher income, and a greater share of low-income individuals (61.8 percent) have high or medium access to supermarkets than those with higher income (56.1 percent).”

There are 23.5 million people who live in “low income” areas that are more than a mile from the nearest supermarket. But more than half of these people are not low-income, and almost everyone in these areas--93.3 percent—drive their cars to the supermarket. On average, they spend 4.5 minutes more than the typical American traveling to the supermarket.

“Area-based measures of access show that 23.5 million people live in low-income areas (areas where more than 40 percent of the population has income at or below 200 percent of federal poverty thresholds) that are more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store,” said the report. “However, not all of these 23.5 million people have low income.

“If estimates are restricted to consider only low-income people in low-income areas, then 11.5 million people, or 4.1 percent of the total U.S. population, live in low-income areas more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store,” it says. “Data on time use and travel mode show that people living in low-income areas with limited access spend significantly more time (19.5 minutes) traveling to a grocery store than the national average (15 minutes).

“However,” says the report, “93 percent of those who live in low-income areas with limited access traveled to the grocery store in a vehicle they or another household member drove.”

Only 0.1 percent—one-tenth of one percent—of Americans living in low-income areas more than 1 mile from a supermarket took public transit to the store, the report said.

For them, Mrs. Obama would create a new $400 million entitlement.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: bigfoot; busybody; wookie; worstlady
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Comment #1 Removed by Moderator

To: IbJensen

what needless spending?


2 posted on 11/08/2010 4:54:24 AM PST by Doogle ((USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: IbJensen

If they’d address the real problem, “food deserts” wouldn’t be an issue.

How about the “character deserts”, the “ambition deserts”, and the “Traditional American culture deserts”?

Address those and you solve most, if not all, the symptoms she’s trying to make an issue of.


3 posted on 11/08/2010 4:55:06 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a (de)humanist and a Satanist is that the latter knows who he's working for.)
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To: IbJensen

No funds, starve this scam.


4 posted on 11/08/2010 4:58:19 AM PST by presently no screen name ("Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.." Mark 7:13)
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To: IbJensen

Is she going to force them to PURCHASE & EAT the veggies too?

Ahhhh....maybe another mandate ordering people to buy something they don’t want?


5 posted on 11/08/2010 4:59:29 AM PST by SumProVita (Cogito, ergo...Sum Pro Vita. (Modified Decartes))
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To: IbJensen
These are the SAME KIDS that already get all their meals FREE in school so this makes absolutely no sense.

I don't ever remember running to the store to buy apples or bananas or oranges. In fact, they were a treat not a norm.

Life was cereal, meat, potatoes and vegies and MILK!!

6 posted on 11/08/2010 5:00:18 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: IbJensen

Meanwhile, Barry-O’s ethanol policies turn tens of thousands of acres of productive farmland into LITERAL “food deserts”.

Can you spell “insanity”, Shelly? Yeah, I thought you could.


7 posted on 11/08/2010 5:00:35 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: IbJensen

I’m more concerned about Truth Deserts. They are huge and they are growing. The Truth Desert in Washington DC extends up into Maryland, through Delaware, and on into Philadelphia.

And that’s just the one The First Wookie lives in. There are hundreds all around the country.


8 posted on 11/08/2010 5:01:28 AM PST by samtheman
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To: IbJensen

a kenyan meets a kenyan...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/11/odd-little-moment-at-the-ceo-meeting.html


9 posted on 11/08/2010 5:01:47 AM PST by biggredd1
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To: IbJensen

because their parents cannot get to a supermarket—to buy fruits and vegetables—without undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi.

Cry me a friggin river..
What a hardship having to take a probally FREE freakin bus to buy groceries..
Lady you donlt have a clue as to what hardship is. Maybe you should speak with a returning soldier about being in the mountains of Afghanistan with the muslims...


10 posted on 11/08/2010 5:01:52 AM PST by SECURE AMERICA
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To: presently no screen name

” No funds, starve this scam. “

But it’s for the CHIL-RUN, don’tcha know??


11 posted on 11/08/2010 5:02:05 AM PST by Uncle Ike (Rope is cheap, and there are lots of trees...)
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To: IbJensen

If they are too lazy to walk to the store they are too lazy to cook the food. Fast food solves this work problem. Next she will want them to get J O B S.


12 posted on 11/08/2010 5:02:23 AM PST by IC Ken
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To: IbJensen

because their parents cannot get to a supermarket—to buy fruits and vegetables—without undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi.

Cry me a friggin river..
What a hardship having to take a probally FREE freakin bus to buy groceries..
Lady you donlt have a clue as to what hardship is. Maybe you should speak with a returning soldier about being in the mountains of Afghanistan with the muslims...


13 posted on 11/08/2010 5:02:49 AM PST by SECURE AMERICA
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To: IbJensen

“Food deserts” exist in areas where crime has driven out (legal) business.


14 posted on 11/08/2010 5:03:03 AM PST by fullchroma
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To: IbJensen
I grew up in a "food desert" although I can't remember anyone whining about it. The ladies used to have these carts to go get their groceries.
15 posted on 11/08/2010 5:03:09 AM PST by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: IbJensen


Vacation Gal says "hands off my pies!"

16 posted on 11/08/2010 5:03:29 AM PST by quantim (Victory is not relative, it is absolute.)
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To: SumProVita
"Is she going to force them to PURCHASE & EAT the veggies too?"

Was my first question while reading this. I'm afraid of the answer.

17 posted on 11/08/2010 5:04:13 AM PST by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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To: IbJensen

Oh baloney. If they can get to the store to buy groceries, they can buy fruit too. Don’t tell me they live on only fast food.
What a waste of $


18 posted on 11/08/2010 5:04:30 AM PST by nuconvert ( Khomeini promised change too // Hail, Chairman O)
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To: SumProVita; IbJensen; All
another mandate ordering people to buy something they don’t want?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis

19 posted on 11/08/2010 5:04:35 AM PST by Nervous Tick (Trust in God, but row away from the rocks!)
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To: IbJensen

This woman is a complete idiot. Why not just airdrop apples every where??


20 posted on 11/08/2010 5:05:24 AM PST by WKUHilltopper (Fix bayonets!)
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