"The last day of school shouldn't mean last call for lunch."
That's how CBS's Katie Couric melodramatically concluded her June 25 "Notebook" item on her CBSNews.com Couric & Co. blog.
The "Evening News" anchor pointed to a report by the liberal Center for American Progress -- without, of course, noting the group's leftward bent -- that found "that nearly 20 million children get free or reduced-price lunch at school. But only one in six of them will receive subsidized meals this summer."
Couric concluded from this that "[n]early one in four children is at risk for hunger" over the summer and called "essential" a bill before Congress to "improve access to summer meals."
Of course nowhere in her Notebook item did Couric weigh whether this might be a matter better left to state and local governments -- especially when the federal government is drowning in red ink -- or better yet, to parents themselves.
After all, schools provide lunches and breakfasts during the school year for the sake of convenience of students and their parents, not because government has the moral responsibility to feed children.
That's obviously the job of parents and their failure to adequately do so is grounds for the involvement of local child protective services.
Parental responsibility and restrained spending of taxpayer dollars are not high on Couric's list of concerns, apparently.
That's a page from my notebook.
