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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (5144)	11/2/2002 2:32:53 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 15516

Bush diverts money from school lunch program to help Thune in South Dakota. Money for School Lunches Diverted to Livestock, Report Contends By Thomas B. Edsall Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 2, 2002; Page A08 A hunger advocacy group has charged that a special livestock drought-relief program crucial to the Senate campaign of Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.) cannot be financed without cutbacks in school lunch programs and food banks for the poor. "Money that formerly went to feed U.S. schoolchildren and other hungry people is being diverted to feed cattle," Bread for the World contended, based on a budgetary analysis of the livestock program. For the past six weeks, Thune and the Bush administration have used the special $752 million program to showcase Thune's ability to provide crucial, election-year assistance to beleaguered cattle ranchers without busting the budget or cutting back on programs. Thune is the Republican nominee in one of the hardest-fought Senate races in the country with huge partisan stakes: The Democratic nominee, Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), is a close ally of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), and Thune was handpicked by Bush aides to run. The livestock program has been a boon to Thune. Before the program was announced, he faced the damaging prospect of having to campaign with a president of his party who had rejected his pleas for new federal spending to relieve the worst drought in South Dakota since the Depression. After the Sept. 19 program announcement, Thune and such groups as Americans for Job Security, an industry organization backing his bid, promoted the program as a demonstration of Thune's ability to figure out how to protect constituent interests without forcing new spending or cutbacks in other programs. "While Washington was talking, John Thune was doing," President Bush said Sept. 24. But Bread for the World has analyzed the sources of cash for the livestock compensation program and concluded that the numbers do not support Thune's and the administration's claims that the $752 million can be diverted without damaging the school lunch and other domestic nutrition programs. The Bread for the World study added up all mandated programs and other expenditures under the $6 billion Section 32 fund, and concluded the $752 million "will soak up" cash traditionally used "to buy 'bonus' surplus commodities -- foods such as fruits and vegetables, beef and salmon," half of which went to school lunch programs and the rest to food banks and food kitchens. The analysis supports earlier complaints by some Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee and by commercial commodity associations whose members sell surplus production through the federal program that will be used to finance the livestock relief. The Department of Agriculture, which jointly announced the livestock program with Thune on Sept.19, declined to address the issues raised by Bread for the World. Instead, Alisa Harrison, spokeswoman for the department, said the $752 million taken from the Section 32 fund "does not impair our ability to meet our responsibilities for these other programs." Harrison said she was not prepared to spell out how these commitments for the nutrition programs would be met, but "we feel we have budget authority under Section 32 to fulfill our commitments." Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Thune campaign, said, "It is my understanding that the school lunch program will remain completely intact," and she referred questions to the Agriculture Department. © 2002 The Washington Post Company