Your tax dollars at work: Goal is to get students walking, bicycling
As children make their way back to classrooms, schools and municipalities in Wisconsin will start spending $4 million in federal transportation grants to encourage and help more of them make that trek by foot or bicycle…
The decline in walking or biking to school has been cited as a cause behind a different trend: the growing number of children who are overweight or obese. A national study found that 18.8% of children ages 6 to 11 were obese in 2003'-04, roughly triple the percentage found two decades earlier.
Looking to reverse the trends, Congress allocated $612 million for the national Safe Routes to Schools program, spread across the 2005-'09 fiscal years.”
And they wonder why we don’t have enough money to fix bridges.
From: RULE (35): If your butt has its own zip code it’s not because McDonald’s forced you to eat all those Big Macs. If you smoke, it’s not Joe Camel’s fault…
The federal government, for example, has created a $125 million program “to persuade children 9 through 13 to become physically active.” This is a $125 million get-out-and-play program in which the federal government tells kids to put the Nintendo down, get off the couch and go outside and play. Isn’t that what your mom does for free?
“It’s a beautiful day,” she’d say, “turn off that bleeping television and go ride your bike or something. And no more Oreos until after you’ve eaten dinner.” And she’d make you eat your vegetables. Now it’s a federal program.
The assumption here is that unless the federal government tells you to do these things, you simply won’t be able to figure it out on your own. Apparently we’re supposed to assume that youngsters who tune out millions of parents, blow off thousands of gym teachers, and ignore the incentives of being attractive to the opposite sex, will somehow listen to the federal government. What’s next? A $125 million program on the benefits of wearing warm socks?
Well, why not? If you can’t figure out what to put into your mouth or that it’s a good idea to walk around the block once in a while, how can you possibly be entrusted to make any other decision without the advice of Big Nanny?