Food Fight

My post mocking Senators Harkin and Murkowski for micro‐​managing school menus has triggered a bit of chatter. Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein saw a reference to the post on Andrew Sullivan’s site and they both argue that somebody should monitor what kids eat. But they completely miss the point. The debate is not about whether kids should be allowed to eat junk food all day. As a parent, I worry about what kids will eat without appropriate guidance (heck, I worry about what I eat in the absence of adult supervision). Instead, this is a federalism issue. Should these decisions be made by parents and local school boards, or by headline‐​seeking politicians in Washington? The good news is that at least one presidential candidate is saying no to federal food police:

Fred Thompson wants the government to keep its hands off your dinner plate. …“I’m telling you, I don’t think that it’s the primary responsibility of the federal government to tell you what to eat,” Thompson said to applause when asked if his health care plan included any details on preventative care, a priority for Democratic candidates. “The fact of the matter is we got an awful lot of knowledge,” said the former Tennesse senator. “Sometimes we don’t have a whole lot of will power, and I don’t know of any government program that’s going to instill that.” Thompson, ever a fan of small government, said healthy living should be the responsibilities of families first.

Based on these sentiments, Thompson presumably does not want Congress micro‐​managing school cafeteria menus. But what about the other GOP candidates? Ron Paul surely is on the right side. Does anybody know where Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee and Romney stand on this issue?