Michelle Obama and school lunches...

Chicago PM Monday 11 March 2013

Editors, The Wall Street Journal

Gentlepeople:

Buried deep in Michelle Obama's article “The Business Case for Healthier Food”
[WSJ Thursday 28 February] she writes "...we've seen Republicans and Democrats
working together in Congress to pass groundbreaking legislation to improve school
lunches.”  Mrs. Obama has a Harvard Law Degree, so she must be familiar with the
United States Constitution.  Could she tell us where in those 8,000 words there is any
mention of the US congress having anything to do with school lunches?

If she thinks “General Welfare clause”, she should read Federalist Number 41 where
James Madison (The Father of the Constitution) wrote: "Some . . . have grounded a
very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It
has been urged and echoed, that the [Constitution's] power '. . . to provide for the
common Defense and general Welfare of the United States,' amounts to an unlimited
commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the
common defense or general welfare.

"Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found
in the Constitution than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection
might have had some color for it . . . But what color can the objection have, when a
specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows,
and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?"

Following that semicolon is a list of 17 other congressional powers, from "borrow
money on the credit of the United States" to "make all Laws which shall be necessary
and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers," but not a word about
school lunches.

Arnold H Nelson

Chicago  ah_nelson@yahoo.com