Gore: Really Cooking?

An aproned Al Gore, trying to get ahead of his Democratic rival on child hunger, dropped in on a local soup kitchen Friday to promise a healthy school breakfast for every child and food stamps for legal immigrants if he is elected president.

An Agriculture Department study released Thursday found that at least 10 percent of households in 18 states and the District of Columbia don't have enough food.

Fourteen million children are among the 36 million Americans who go hungry each day. "That should gnaw at our conscience because we have the food, we have the resources, we have the means to do something about it," the vice president said, speaking on World Hunger Day.

His hunger-fighting platform was rushed out ahead of a long-scheduled address on child poverty next week by rival Bill Bradley.

Bradley, who often silences audiences with his stump speech anecdote about a little girl who didn't eat breakfast on the day it was her sibling's turn to eat, has promised a comprehensive plan to eradicate child poverty.

Gore similarly tried to preempt Bradley last month, when he speedily assembled a plan for guaranteed child health care in advance of Bradley's own, much broader health reform announcement.

In a half-hour stop at Martha's Table where he, his wife and children have volunteered in the past, Gore tied an apron over his crisp dress shirt and necktie to chop peppers for a giant vat of vegetable soup. He joined regular volunteers in layering bologna and cheese on wheat bread.

Without detailing how he would reach his goals, Gore said that as president he would:

• Give communities unspecified resources to design innovative strategies, such as expanding the number of schools that provide free meals or making sure parents know that breakfast is available at school for their children.

• Allow working families to own "a reliable" car of unspecified value without jeopardizing their food stamp eligibility. Under current policy, families getting food stamps cannot own a car worth more than $4,650.

• Push for full food-stamp eligibility for legal immigrants. Last year, Congress restored food stamps for elderly, disabled and minor non-citizens, covering 250,000 of the 935,000 legal immigrants who had lost those benefits under 1996 welfare reforms.

• Reward states that do a "good job" signing up families for food stamps.

• Support anti-hunger partnerships among local, state, national and religious groups.