The GAO confirms my suspicions

A few Christmasses ago, my family was gathered at this restaurant, and we got to talking about government programs to help feed children--something near and dear to the heart of my late mother, who worked in school food service.  As she mentioned that this program was supposed to provide 35% of calories in a day, that program another 35%, and so on, I had the gall to ask, more or less, what the total calories provided in these programs might be, and whether it might have something to do with both the cost of government and the problem of obesity among low income families.  If you're taught "clean your plate" by your parents (who don't want to waste anything), and then given about twice the calories you need, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you're most likely to become overweight.

Which leads, indirectly, to this recent study by the GAO; evidently, duplicated services account for about $200 billion in needless expenditures at the federal level.  Put differently, my hunch about duplicated services is sadly entirely correct, and we could cut $200 billion without even really cutting into the fat of the federal budget--about $660 in spending for every man, woman, and child in the country.

I don't know about all of you out there, but I dare suggest that I could find a better use for my family's $4700 share of this boondoggle than 82 different teacher training programs (that aspire to do as well as my untrained family does at homeschooling) and dozens of programs to "feed poor kids". 

Going back to the original thought, perhaps by limiting food aid to, say, 100% of daily calories, we could also save a little bit of money on Medicaid from all the obesity-related disease we wouldn't need to treat anymore. 

Step up to the plate (pun intended), Congress.  Cut the extra programs, cut the personnel, and maybe tourists will finally be able to get around the Beltway without waiting so much in traffic, too.