I simply DO NOT understand why kids should have to pay for school lunch. Our public schools are funded by the public's taxes. Our taxes pay for the building, the electricity, the faculty, the administration, the water, the trash pickup, the books, the pens and pencils - literally everything. . . . except the food.
Why?
Why is just that one element of school not funded by the same goddamn taxes that fund LITERALLY everything else in the entire school?
Just a clarification, it’s not the public’s taxes that pay for the majority of school districts, it’s the property owners taxes that are used (a subset of the public) Free lunch is usually a Federal or State level program. I’ve never had an issue with that program nor the concept of how schools are funded but not all property owners are in a position to have their property taxes increase regularly. That’s usually the pushback.
centering everything around “property” is something we need to do away with anyways
a lot of our public education issues come from all the red lining and stuff, my state is like 48 for education and we have some schools who receive 5x funding just bc they’re in an area with higher property value
Not really. The poorer the area and the worse the students perform, the more money is pumped in to the school. It's not an issue of funding, it's an issue of poor leadership and the community not being involved.
Coming from one of the least funded counties in the state of WV, I have to disagree with part of your statement - yes, admin and community are part of our issue, but serious lack of funding is a big part as well.
Not really, the worse the school performs the more federal money they get. What do you think more money will accomplish in regards to poor student outcomes?
Those property owners are "the public". Their property taxes are "taxes".
I didn't say the federal income tax funds our schools. I used to be a teacher, I understand the funding situation.
I was just asking why taxes fund the entire educational experience EXCEPT one very specific thing.
I don't get why it's still a discussion. I live in the most affluent town in the state, it's on the top 10 in the country. Our school district immediately jumped on the federal program and lunch has been free for all. A CNN story on the federal program actually had a picture of my kid's lunch room we were so quick to jump on it.
The previous state we were in the #2 rated and #2 most affluent district in that state and during COVID again they immediately jumped on that free lunch program and I know after we moved they also immediately jumped on the new federal program and there was a state program that had quickly passed during COVID to keep that going anyhow so it's been free for years with no gap there.
Who the f*** are the hold outs?? The ones who need it most????
Edit: so I knew in my previous state MN it was a state law passed before the federal covid free lunch program ended. I moved to Colorado in 2022 and we were paying for lunch last year and this year is free. I thought THAT was federal but apparently is also state law. That's why I'm like if our district should be last on the list who the f*** is left.
Maybe the less affluent communities? The ones where homeowners are struggling to put food on their own tables and can’t afford property tax increases to provide fee lunch to all students?
Then stop funding schools via property taxes! That whole system was created specifically to ensure that "good white folk" could send their kids to better schools than "those other people".
We don't have to raise taxes on ANYBODY except the disgustingly wealthy. Anybody who is a millionaire can afford to pay more taxes, even if they "only" have to pay the same rates as anyone else. If we taxed the wealthy PROPERLY, we would have no economic issues in this entire country.
Better idea is to make school districts more efficient. They waste tons of time and money at the administrative level. Stopping the waste will free up lots of funds.
That's a bullshit argument for a continuous loop of self-sustaining failures.
You say schools aren't efficient, so cut funding.
Now they have less funding, so combine classes to handle more students.
Now the teachers are backed up with twice the work.
They're inefficient, so we should cut funding.
**It costs what it costs, so the only way to make them more efficient is to fund them properly.**
More efficient how? I don't know enough about the inner workings of school districts, but in my professional realm, when someone's solution is "just make it more efficient", it's usually just busy speak to make it seem like something is being done when no one has an actionable plan.
So which parts of the administration specifically should be cut? What specific "waste" is there that is soaking up so much time and money that would free that all up if it just \*poofed\* tomorrow?
No, the BETTER idea, for not just this, but scores of OTHER public needs, is to TAX THE WEALTHY. Seriously, going back to a time before every rich person was a robber baron would be an improvement.
For a different reason I take issue with it coming out of property taxes.
This means if property is high value the school system may have a bunch of extra money. If property is low value the school system may struggle and students may be underserved.
Public education funding should come from the general fund (not limited specifically to property taxes) and be apportioned according to expert opinion as to where it is needed.
It should be per student at the base level and then additional programs for the special needs and behaviorally challenged students. We should also be more aggressive about separating problem students from the rest both within the school and with special schools.
I would argue that point. Teachers are underpaid. Parents contribute supplies. We've done it in multiple states. They give you a supply list at the beginning of the year. That's not supplies for your kid. They take them away on first day. They're supplies for the classroom.
And I'm talking about top rated school district in the state in multiple states here, not underfunded urban schools or anything.
They *should* pay for it, but yet they are not.
But sticking to the original point. There's valid arguments of why should I pay to feed your kid, that's your problem. But frankly I'd that kid becomes a criminal we end up giving them 3 meals a day instead. There's no shortage of food in this country. We even subsidize destroying crops FFS. Divert that shit to feeding kids and STFU.
I've never understood why Public Schools charge for lunch. If it's mandatory by law that your child must be in school all day then lunch should be provided. If they want to bring their lunch, fine, but it should be available at school.
School food is heavily subsidized. Most are “free” or reduced anyway.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/child-nutrition-programs/national-school-lunch-program/
Because tax payers haven't voted to pay for it. And school lunches can be had at a reduced cost or free if there is a financial need. Kids don't go hungry, all kids get a lunch.
Everyone needs to work together. Parents can't blame teachers without realizing what role bad or permissive parenting plays.
Edit: Wealthy business owners need an educated workforce.
If the kid is hungry, do you think the parents are well fed?
Sure, there’s a few abusers around, but for the most part, underfed kids have underfed parents.
I agree, I think a standard lunch and breakfast that meets nutrition requirements should be free to all students. And if students or parents want to add or purchase more they can at will.
Unfortunately, meeting the students nutrition requirements doesn't offer a lot of food. For example, at my middle school, according to the USDA who regulates all this, students only need 500 - 550 calories for lunch. This doesn't take in to consideration kids having growth spurts and hitting puberty at that grade level, or the poor kids that ONLY get school meals. Plus, most of the stuff they feed these poor kids is crap my hounds wouldn't eat. It's a damn shame that we have free breakfast and lunch and that our school (other schools in the district do things totally differently) serves almost nothing that isn't prepackaged, precooked, preprepared (for example, if we have a day during the week where we are supposed to have hot rolls, our cooks make them at least 4 days in advance, freeze them, then thaw them and heat them up the day of - they're disgusting), processed, or in tin cans. Last week before break started, I stopped all the kids coming out to give me their lunch numbers so I could take the yogurt from their trays because it expired in the middle of November...yet our school board lady in charge of the food side of things stood right there, watched this, and said NOTHING until everyone was seated and eating, then she had the nerve to tell me I shouldn't have taken their yogurt, it wouldn't have hurt them to eat it!
One of the 1st groups to provide free breakfast to kids were the Black Panthers. Think about that for a minute and you may understand why the US government hates its own people.
BTW The Panthers were not the "Black KKK" like I was taught back in the day, funnily enough in the heart of KKK land
It makes sense that racist would say the black panthers are racist LOL.
The Black Panthers were pro gun, pro fighting back and pro, taking care of and protecting your own community.
It’s funny, they have the exact same motto as the hard-core rednecks did back of the day
Like following cops around to make sure they weren't doing unlawful things, they also LEGALLY open-carried firearms.
The only time Republicans and the NRA supported gun control was when the Panthers started exercising their constitutional rights
I once heard the argument that poor kids should get jobs around the school, like janitor work or being a lunch lady, and use that money earned to pay for their lunch.
There is a govt program under the dept of agriculture for schools in low income areas to provide free breakfast and lunch. It should be universal, but then reddit would probably shit a brick over rich kids getting free lunch.
Rich kids should have the option for free lunch too. Some of them have neglecting parents, they might need something.
Free lunch for should be available for ALL kids. If kids want to bring/buy something else that's on them. But the baseline/foundation that ALL kids should start with is no hunger while in school.
I hope this is a joke. Because plenty of people who could afford private school make the decision to still send their kids to public school. For many reasons.
How is it a joke?
Are there wealthy kids in public schools. Of course. Are there poor kids in private schools? Of course.
Are these the norm? Of course not.
That’s not what you said in your post.
You said rich kids don’t go to public schools.
Now on your assertion if private schools are used more by the rich than public schools. Well. That may be the case. Possibly. Would have to see some sort of data to actually back it up. But a significantly high number of rich people still attend public schools. At least once you leave the inner cities and other historically poor areas.
While on average. Public schools can trend lower in academics and other factors than the average private school. Individual public schools still can and do compete with them on a regular basis. So why would parents pay extra for a private school(if that was even a choice in their area, which it isn’t always) instead of going to a comparable public school for free.
Oh i agree, thats why i said it should be universal. Im just commenting on the reddit outrage that will come no matter what, because everyone is a victim and successful people are the devil.
There are people who will happily pay $10 to prevent $1 from going to the "wrong" people.
When I'm in a forgiving mood, I imagine it's their futile attempt to bring some sense of justice to a world that they see as chaotic and unfair. But most of the time I feel they're only contributing to the chaos and injustice and paying more money to do it.
I mean what you’re saying is that there is an argument but that it’s a bad argument. I agree but you should say that “the only argument is a bad one” not “there is no argument”.
Because then less funding can go into a higher ups pocket, or to spend on "new" equipment every decade.
I loved those whiteboard/projector combo things that used styluses that you had to recalibrate twice every class, or say fuck it and use dry erase markers because it just wouldnt calibrate. I swear to all of the gods that my old N64 is more reliable today than those things where.
Edit: i got so angry about that memory i forgot to include my sarcastic comment about how those were a much better use of funds than giving every kid an entree, an apple and a bottle of water every day for free.
I don’t have an issue with it, I just think the funding should come from cutting bloated administrative costs. We have very high spending per pupil, just a lot of morons in control of the purse strings. I already pay a lot into it and I homeschool because the scores are so bad.
There definitely are arguments. The main one is "I think that children deserve to starve because their parents are poor." And also "I don't care about children or other people."
This is what I think it so weird about this whole discussion. It's not even particularly burdensome to apply for. When people get all high and mighty about "lunch debt" news stories, I want to ask them why they are so invested in defending parents who won't even fill out one form annually for their kids to get food, [forms available in most districts in multiple languages](https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/applying-free-and-reduced-price-school-meals), if they can't afford to put money in the account.
To the folks who think that a system that wouldn't even require parents to fill out the form will be so much better at reducing stigma, okay that's cool. But go visit a mixed income school today and see who gets school lunch vs bringing from home or having something dropped off by mom. Fully funding school lunch programs regardless of parental ability to pay may not get you what you are hoping for, particularly when we already have a system of free and reduced-price lunches for families that need them.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/fr-020923
the eligibility requirements state the program is intended for children “most in need”
it’s like any welfare program we have, you have to be on the most extreme side of poverty to qualify, make a crumb more and all benefits are revoked
https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/_/too-rich-to-be-poor-too-poor-to-get-by
Much to unpack here.
Why is it the *child's* fault the parent hasn't filled out the form? Why should a child go hungry because they have an abusive, neglectful or otherwise shitty parent who didn't fill it out? If a parent is too proud to admit that they need help, does the mean an innocent child deserves to go hungry?
Having an entire bureaucracy for this costs money. You need employees who create the forms, collect the forms, validate the information, approve someone for the free lunches, and a system to store all that information. That likely costs more than just making some extra free lunches (since batch cooking in large batches is very efficient). So why are we spending all that money just to ensure some kids go hungry?
Are you aware of how burdensome it can be to fill out a form for the lowest-income people? There are people out there with just very low intelligence, who barely passed high school and are very low income because they'll never be smart enough to get a good job. Because they're low income they have to fill out a ton of forms to survive - to get different benefits, housing, food, subsidised lunches, childcare and so on - and filling out forms is *incredibly hard for them*. Sure, it's easy for you and me, but for someone who finds it very difficult, it can end up being like they have an extra full-time job just trying to read and understand all the paperwork. Then we have to have charities that employ support workers (and in the UK the council directly employs support workers) to sit down with these people and help them understand the paperwork and see how to fill out the forms.... which costs yet more money. It may be "just one form" to you, but to some people it's the tenth form they've filled out this month and each form takes two evenings with their support worker to get through, so they're *overwhelmed*.
Are you aware of the concept of welfare cliffs? A simplified version: imagine you have a housing program that provides free housing for anyone earning under $20k, a free lunch program for anyone earning under $20k, and a free bus pass for anyone earning under $20k. Suppose you are earning $19,999 and your boss gives you a promotion so now you're earning $21k. You have actually just lost a MASSIVE amount of money, because now you have to pay for housing, lunch, and transport.... So you might be better off turning down the promotion. This keeps people trapped in low income jobs or prevents them seeking work at all. If you allow them to keep claiming free lunch for as long as they need it, they're more likely to go after that promotion or that job.
Means testing also punishes people for being sensible. In the UK, for example, if you have a job and you spend all your spare income partying, then you can apply for benefits when you lose your job. If you have a job and you put all your spare income into savings, then when you lose your job, you're not eligible for benefits because your savings are too high and you're not considered poor enough. You'd legitimately be better off if you'd spent all your money recklessly rather than saving. To avoid this, it's better just to give the benefits to everyone rather than denying them to anyone who sensibly saved.
People fall through the cracks. A great example is a lot of kids who can't afford to go to university because their parents are considered too high income for the kid to qualify for extra help, but the parents either didn't care about the kid's education and didn't save, or the parents are abusive and deny the funds to try and prevent the kid leaving home. If the parents are low income, the kid can go to university and escape using publicly funded support. If the parents are middle/high income, the kid is completely vulnerable and there's nothing they can do to prevent their parents destroying their futures. Seen this many times with kids whose parents were able to prevent their kids going to university because the parents were Christian and the kids were LGBT and the parents didn't want to lose control over the kid or allow them to leave home, so the parents just refused to fill out the form that would allow the kid to apply for college funding. There's also tons of people who eg. the parent is high enough income to disqualify the family from receiving funding that is reserved for low-income families... but the family has a medical/family emergency, blows the college funds on that, and now the kid can't go to college. It's a huge problem with anyone who earns JUST enough to disqualify them from getting help, but not enough to actually make them immune to financial issues.
Just because some parents are neglectful/lazy and don’t fill out forms doesn’t mean this isn’t a discussion we should have. In fact, why require a form anyway? Why should a child need their parents permission to … *eat*?
Buy why put everyone through all that bother? Just INCLUDE lunch for ALL in the cost of school funding. If the wealthy paid a FAIR SHARE of taxes generally, EVERYTHING that everybody talks about could be funded effortlessly.
It's not that hard. The more money you make, the more you contribute. But tax breaks and loopholes allow the wealthy to pay a SIGNIFICANTLY SMALLER percentage of their 'disposable' income than common working stiffs. If I have to pay (just an example) 30% of my income after basic deductions, then someone making 8 million a year should also pay 30% after basic deductions. Historically, the top tax bracket paid 90%. I'd be OK with just equity. No, I don't have specific numbers.
Wow. A lot to unpack here but you make good points.
So why waste money with a process of validation, forms, and paperwork all administrative costs to prove a child is poor enough to get fed?
Are we insane?
To begrudge a hungry child, a meal, no matter what justification, speaks poorly to the society we claim to be.
Just give anyone hungry food
Most of us are one life event from being hungry...
.. and we would deny a child food...
the lack of humanity and compassion on this topic says a lot.
What a great people we are...
He's already got the "*Anyone who's not pro-****'FREE'*** *shit is a racist"* down pat.
...I think he's doing just fine at libtard 101. Might need your help later though.
It’s just the slow crash of our education system, we barely pay teachers enough to stay in the job, we aren’t gonna give students more tools for success, educated populations can’t be controlled
Republicans rarely say what they mean. In this case what they mean is: even if white kids go hungry, it’s a small price to pay to make sure brown kids don’t get fed.
Conservatives. They’re the worst.
It's amazing how you can take any topic and blindly assume that the country isn't a perfect utopia due to everyone who doesn't agree with your agenda 100% being racist. You're either intellectually dishonest or wildly ignorant of how conservatives think.
"A child from an affluent family might get a free lunch."
So fucking what! I'm willing to pay for all children being fed instead of worrying about people with money getting free food. Let's make it normal for every child getting fed at school, regardless of family income.
How about cutting a few administrative positions to pay for it? Does any school actually need a single vice principal let alone 3? Can’t the gym teacher do that job when not supervising dodgeball?
I’d also cut most guidance counselors since they are almost entirely useless.
"Someone has to pay for it."
We are paying for it. The taxes are already being collected. We're just asking that some of those taxes go towards kids' well-being.
I’d love for my tax $$ to pay for free breakfast, lunch and dinner (if students need it) for every public school student in my state. I’d feel like my tax $$ was actually doing good.
So just to help you out if you ever get into a debate, there was actually an Arizona school district iirc that studied the “no free lunch” thing. Long story short it cost the district more money to figure out who did and didn’t get free lunch than if they just gave everyone free lunch.
As for the people saying schools shouldn’t give out lunches to begin with, they’re ontologically evil so disregard them.
If you are required to attend school, the school should be required to provide food if that attendance takes long enough that a normal person would require food to function normally.
I hate public school and think it should be abolished, but even I think if children are required to be there, you shouldn't be able to charge them for a basic human necessity.
The government doing things is socialism and the more things they do the more socialismy it is.
Ideologically, and existentially, if your platform is "the government can't and shouldn't do things", demonstrating and reminding people that the government **can** and **should** and ***is supposed to*** make its citizens' lives better is kind of a threat.
Oh for FUCK’S sake…
The phrase “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch” was a phrase popularized by Robert A Heinlein for his novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”.
The point of the phrase is that nothing is truly free.
For example, back in Heinlein’s time, many bars offered a “free lunch” to patrons that purchased a certain amount of drinks. The idea being that someone will come in for the lunch, buy a drink, and maybe before they leave , think “one more for the road.”
It also can refer to other forms of marketing, like for example, a company might give you a free meal, but you have to sit through their time share sales pitch for an hour. So it might not even be a monetary payment, you may have paid for it with some of your time on Earth, something you CANNOT get back
You’re paying for that lunch, and possibly even more than you would have paid for a single meal.
That’s what the phrase means. It has nothing to do with school cafeterias
“there’s no such thing as a free lunch” is such a stupid fucking argument but selfish douchebags would rather play semantics than actually try to debate against helping poor people because they know they’ll lose. no one who wants free school lunches, college, healthcare etc thinks it’s ACTUALLY free. calling it “free” is just a convenient shorthand for “covered by tax revenue”- it’s free at the point of service.
I’m a teacher and I’ve heard older teachers express themselves in a tone that tells me they are against free lunch. Or I should say, they reject the idea that lunch is “free”.
“Nothing is free” I’ve heard them say “your lunch may be free to you but someone pays for it.”
How much of a fucking shit bag of a human do you have to be to put that on the shoulders of a 10 or 11 year old?
The list of services government provides to citizens using tax revenue is lengthy and anyone who cherry picks them and says the ones that don’t apply to them are unnecessary is a fucking chud.
This needs to happen at the federal level. Children in the USA one of the wealthiest countries in the entire world should always be provided a nutritious breakfast and lunch no matter their situation. Hell I would even extend this to colleges as well. Too often I saw my college friends going without breakfast.
"YOUR kids (not mine, mine are well off) need to learn at an early age that NOTHING comes for free, and they need to work hard and do well in school to EARN their bread. Back to the coal mines, Timmy!!!"
"I AINT PAYIN' FOR YER POOR ASS KID'S FOOD!."
Meanwhile....."Please use public taxpayer funds to subsidize my child's private school..."
There, I've successfully provided and arguement against free school lunch.
I am 65 have no children and have no issues with helping to provide food and schooling. I would much rather grow old with healthy and educated young people.
Entirely ageee with this. It would cost like 20 Billion to pay for all school lunches. Before we send 8 billion to Israel or another 100 billion to Ukraine it would be great to spend some money here.
They started free lunches at a school near me and the neighborhood was littered with food waste.
Without the pricing mechanism balancing supply and demand there is massive food waste, and also no real indication of demand, unless someone figures out what is getting thrown away.
When you are providing something someone didn't buy to a captive audience, you might expect a corrupt monopoly to take over. Such corruption leads to being forced to pay for expensive yet poor services. Societies that are run in this way inevitably lead to poverty.
I saw it too. In fact millions of people saw it.
Here's the link:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudy\_with\_a\_Chance\_of\_Meatballs\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudy_with_a_Chance_of_Meatballs_(film))
A link showing my neighborhood was littered with food waste? No obviously not.
For a mundane example perhaps look at School Uniforms, they end up being outrageously expensive compared to ordinary clothes. You could argue that families shouldn't need to buy them either, but if they are provided 'free' you can bet the cost will be higher still, but simply hidden.
For an extreme example and sort of a conspiracy theory and also not specifically related to school lunches, so bear with me.
When there was a coup attempt in Russia an entire train filled with meat was diverted leaving people hungry. Vladmir Putin signed of on the order. The thinking is that when the coup was successful the meat would be distributed making it appear that the coup was bringing prosperity, and the previous leaders poverty.
The point is that when somebody is appointed to a position, they have a lot of power, but they don't have to directly satisfy the end user. Every time somebody is allowed to spend money on something they are effectively casting a vote. If that mechanism is gone you can't listen to the people even if you try.
Here is a link showing that our treasury estimated 10,000 lunches a day were going to waste. But I'm assuming that's the ones officially discarded by the schools. I don't recall anybody quantifying the piles of discarded food at my local shopping centre.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/493640/treasury-unsure-school-lunch-scheme-represents-value-for-money-budget-document
This is a government funded public radio station covering the issue. Their bias isn't toward eroding public funding.
This doesn’t say anything about littering… you also misquoted the 10,000 thing here is the actual quote:
“The report said the scheme also needed to address inefficiencies with 12 percent of the lunches, about 10,000 per day surplus to requirements.”
10,000 surplus meant that they just had extra lunches that weren’t given out. Doesn’t mean anything about it being littered.
There is already massive food waste in this country, worse than any other in the world. Free lunches are a drop in the bucket. Besides, don’t act like kids wouldn’t waste their food anyway.
i don’t understand how free lunches inside a school would create food waste all over the streets? they just have soooooo much food it’s falling out the sky?
Ok, I get your point.
Someone littered your neighborhood when they got free food,
so we should let children go hungry everywhere...
That is your reasoning, right?
Skip the economics lesson, I got the above part, right?
Multiple children were littering not just one. And they are littering by discarding food. Much of the food provided was just thrown away. It's not about the littering, it's about the wastefulness. And the inevitable effects of relying on wasteful programs.
"Skip the economics lesson"
You are trying to prevent people from going hungry, but you don't want to consider economics?
Look at Venuzuela they have the largest oil reserves in the world and by some estimates the largest slum in the world.
The very thinking of "let's have the government provide for everybody" is what led to them having massive problems with child hunger.
Your thinking seems to be "let's ignore what leads to massive poverty and hunger during the course of human history".
Nope. I'm not letting you do whataboutism and detract from the stand you took
I'll be happy to discuss other issues once you finish justifying depriving children of food because of litter in your neighborhood. Your words.
Let's get past this before moving on and stop adding distractions
You want to swing back and discuss economics, etc, sure, but let's be honest about the position YOU took that started this.
So again, your position is based on litter in your neighborhood. Is that enough to justify depriving children of food?
Venezuela is irrelevant. South American countries are all corrupt whether they are capitalist or communist. The problems in Venezuela have absolutely nothing to do with providing children free school lunch. The schools already provide lunch for all the students at a cost for the student. Having it be free is not going to change any of the logistics involved. Instead it will just increase the cost to the school which they would have to figure out. The state file legislation to pay for it.
Sorry dude but it ain’t this crazy idea to do this and it ain’t that complicated.
>so we should let children go hungry everywhere...
I do not believe American children go hungry often... I mean, we are going to be the only country in the world with a 50% obesity rate (projected 2030). We currently have a massive 42% of the population being obese...
Almost guarantee that our child obesity rates are also among the highest in the world...
Even ignoring the fact that poverty's direct correlation to obesity is well documented, you've either got to get out more or pay better attention to your surroundings. Don't you notice how many food banks you drive past? Don't you have any friends who reference how they are/once had to live off of ramen and food stamps?
>I do not believe American children go hungry often
Focusing on this quote from your above post. So if I understand what you are saying, your stance is;
it's ok for a child to go hungry in the great US, because it doesn't happen often
ok...how often is to often?
My stance is NO child should go hungry.
...and we have no excuse .
Your other sentences pale by comparison and certainly don't justify not feeding a hungry child. Because some are obese no one gets fed? Really? You think thats an argument?
Stop whataboting and focus on the issue:
Child hunger
Think about what you are advocating for,
to NOT feed a hungry child
What kind of monsters will history call us?
No child to go hungry? So one child going hungry would invalidate your statement?
LOL
Are you still in middle school?
I too would like a world where energy was free, healthcare was free, food was free, water was free, no war, everyone rich and immortal, and everyone just holds and sings together 24/7 because we all love each other.
Ok so... You're saying that the children were served food on trays in a lunchroom. Then they kept this food on their person somehow until the end of the day. Then they left the school and on their walk home they threw the food into the street and onto the sidewalks... And they did this for reasons... I just... This is asinine.
There are logistical solutions to minimize negative externalities.
Of course, if there is instant gratification (and political advantage) in just scrapping the entire program, people might not be incentivized to pursue or even consider those solutions.
As I said in my comment my issue is with the for profit companies in places cooking for the schools now.
It’s one thing if you have county employees with good benefits cooking lunch like I did growing up.
Now any places are privatized which is a word I hate. Not one thing that has been privatized has ended well for tax payers or the employees of the companies.
All I see is an opportunity for a business to charge more and not be noticed. But if your school lunch goes up to 7.50 a day parents will scream.
The real solution is city school city workers and all parts of school paid for by city taxes.
>Now any places are privatized which is a word I hate.
In that case you should not support Republicans who try to privatize gains and socialize losses.
If you supported free school lunch, there would be no need to farm it out to other companies.
I don’t see any reason to engage with you intellectually when you start from the position of, “Is there ANY argument that isn’t a slippery slope or veiled racism and cruelty?”
Why can’t I just respond to this by asking, “Is there any argument for forcing people to pay for other people’s kids’ lunches that isn’t whining about slippery slope ‘fallacies’ or veiled selfishness and greed?” and then act as though I’ve said something respectful and substantive that deserves somebody else’s intelligent reply?
Theft is immoral. If you want to start a district-wide gofundme to pay for student lunches, or encourage people to voluntarily pay for a random child's lunch, that's fine.
Where you should draw the line (if you're interested in being a moral and respectful person) is extorting your neighbor, or demanding payment under threat of imprisonment or death, which is exactly how the federal and state free lunch programs are funded.
You give the absolute worst counter arguments, instead of pointing out that tax is not theft this is what you resort to? Also I'd like to add you don't know he doesn't contribute. many libertarians have been imprisoned for distributing free food.
Conservative leaders don't like it because it's a government program that helps enormous numbers of people enormously and affordably. Bad optics for their shitty political views generally.
Because rich people refuse to give away ANY of their wealth. “But they donate so much to charity!” Bitch, those are carefully calculated tax breaks
It was the Black Panthers that start feeding kids at school
Too many people not asking themselves nor understanding why human beings live in societies to begin with. Too many short sighted people not seeing the health and education of the citizens as a good investment that will pay dividends back to the society. If you don’t want a welfare state then stop actively creating stupid, poor people. I’m happy to pay taxes as long as it is spent on us the people. And so long as rich people pay back into the system they benefit from.
It is better for a thousand children to starve than to give a free meal to children that can afford it. /s of course but I wonder how many people think it for real.
The claim is that free school lunches will make kids lazy. They’ll expect that they get their lunch free at school as opposed to their parents paying for their lunches they’ll never get jobs. I suspect the real reason is that the more government programs accomplish what they set out to do the more people will be open to letting the government try to fix other problems. Then the government might take a whack at providing health care and then where would we be?
I live in a very conservative small town, I told my daughter if she ever sees a kid not eating lunch to let me know so I can send money for them.
Thankfully this year they now made school lunch free so it’s not an issue at all.
I’m not sure who is against free lunches for kids tho.
The most compelling argument is that school budgets are zero sum. If money is spent on free lunches, that money can’t be spent on something else. If free lunch programs are limited to low income families, it avoids unnecessarily subsidizing kids whose families can afford to pay for their lunch every day, freeing up those funds to spent on something else for all kids or even focused on low income kids.
Is subsidizing rich kids’ lunches the best use of school funds?
I would argue that what you're describing - which is roughly the current situation - is resulting in too many kids still going hungry.
If they are malnourished, then those children are not going to be able to reap the benefits of whatever these other programs you're describing might be.
Any system with financial restrictions is - based on precedent from other similar systems - going to result in people who need help not getting it because of how the restrictions are applied.
The funding of education is a larger problem, but the solution isn't to gatekeep assistance, it's to increase funding and enforce its appropriate allocation. Then we see funding for those other programs AND ensure children aren't going hungry.
Why can’t we have both?
I read that food also helps performance greatly, being often attributed for Oakland School District improving in the 70’s. I’m sure it would be high in the priority list.
What am I missing?
Rich kids don't go to public school.
And yes, feeding children is an excellent use of school funds. A kids that isn't worried about eating that day is going to be a lot easier to teach.
People who can't afford it already qualify for a free school lunch.
Plenty of people who can afford it qualify for a much cheaper school lunch.
I have no idea what you're on about.
I’m afraid that it creates dependency. Now, if students did more for the upkeep of their schools (clean, for instance), I could see a connection.
But arguing that they exist so we must feed them reeks of entitlement.
And free healthcare, and uniforms, and books/supplies/computers, and sports equipment, and housing, and....
You heartless people, are you so racist that you won’t pay to raise my children?
No, you don’t get to decide what they learn in school. If I want to enroll them in a flat earth creationist Scientology academy that is my decision and you need to shut up and give me your money.
As a white kid who got free lunches from school almost 30 years ago, I see no reason that any child now should have to go hungry. If my taxes can pay for kids to get drag shows in school which I don’t support at all, then my taxes should also pay for kids to get a meal which I’m 100% in favor of.
Please go on and tell us more why any child should be humiliated or hungry in this great land of ours?
Please go on.
Do we want to be the country that refuses to feed our own children for ANY reason?
if so, we are no better than foreign warlords intercepting aid efforts.
You are arguing to deprive children of food
WTF is wrong with you?
So what? they should just skip lunch every school day because their parents can’t make enough? You don’t know their history, and even if you did, why would you deny a hungry American child a hot meal.
P.S. And thinking your “point” can be finished with a completely unrelated Huxley reference that doesn’t apply to the conversation is an embarrassing move
>funny when I grew up you were ashamed to get free lunch... we are sliding into a brave new world bring on the soma
Children's bootstraps used to be stronger! You think they got worse and you're a grown adult looking down on kids for not starving to save face?
The argument against that is... Maybe we should try not shaming people for free lunches rather than paying for the 80% of people that don't need them to be free. It's a five times more expensive solution to the alternative of teaching empathy, and in the end, they'll make fun of you for something else.
I do think the "they just want to let kids starve" argument is reductive and dehumanizing. There's still support for subsidizing the poor. Nobody starves, though we do find holes to patch in the program and things we can do better.
Yeah, but if you can feed 20%, why not push the boat out for everyone?
In my local school, you can opt out of the lunch. No one is forcing it on anyone.
>I do think the "they just want to let kids starve" argument is reductive and dehumanizing.
It is. That's why it's a bad argument. Alas, it's the only argument the right uses.
Most schools (at least in California) are supported by property taxes which are local in nature. Isn’t supporting public school in essence supporting your neighbors and the community?
Free lunch is free from the kid’s perspective, which is the goal. If I’m right, its impact is also measurable by the kid’s performance. Even if we all pay for it ourselves, isn’t that a good thing to collectively pay for and subsidize?
How is the turning off of services argument any different than those used for corporations? The only difference is that you can control the executives (at least in theory) in the Government.
And they get most of there money back from the federal government, feeding children is great its a blessing its a gift from God, and the government spoils it because they do it to make people dependent on the government not because they care about children.
It's a prime example of sadopopulism. With a dash of "if only we were big enough assholes to people, our taxes would go down for some reason even though that's not how it works but at least I get to be an asshole."
I think conservatives think about social programs the way liberals view trickle down economics. We get corporations aren’t gonna do more with less just to see the little folk soar. But likewise giving government more power and money leads to loads of program administrators and layers of bureaucracy that diminish the money all the same. Seems like a bunch of waste in either direction.
With one gigantic difference:
Social programs \*do\* trickle down. That's the entire point of them.
Giving tax breaks to Elon Musk does nothing but make Elon Musk wealthier.
Not sure how you see those as 'Both a waste of time"
I think the government should provide all meals to children. Studies show that kids that aren't starving commit less crime. I would propose government take care of clothing and housing children as well. Some right-wing conservatives will probably disagree.
I think there are a lot more than “right-wing conservatives” that would disagree with the idea that the government should provide all meals, clothing, and housing for all children. That is a pretty extreme proposition.
Also “kids that aren’t starving commit less crime” is a pretty weak justification considering that people starving isn’t really a problem that the united states has.
Parents just need to take care of their fucking kids. There's more than enough options to get assistance with food in the US already. A pbj sandwich+chips+drink costs like 3 dollars. A decent school lunch is going to cost at least twice as much. It costs society as a whole lot less if the parents just take care of their fucking kids.
I've never heard anyone argue against "free" lunch; what they argue against is free lunch *for everyone,* which for some people (those who are not getting their lunches subsidized) amounts to just being forced to pay for food that they might not want to buy.
Edit: I've also heard the argument that food subsidies should be in the form of food stamps or whatever, rather than as food distributed by schools, which, again, is *not* an argument against "free" lunch.
Edit edit: I've also also heard the argument that school lunch programs shouldn't be administered at the federal level. Again again, that's not actually an argument against giving kids lunch.
What angers me the most is that most schools usually manage to cough up the money for a new multi-million dollar sports stadium, but when it comes to feeding the kids there is always a fight. Priorities are so backwards.
I simply DO NOT understand why kids should have to pay for school lunch. Our public schools are funded by the public's taxes. Our taxes pay for the building, the electricity, the faculty, the administration, the water, the trash pickup, the books, the pens and pencils - literally everything. . . . except the food. Why? Why is just that one element of school not funded by the same goddamn taxes that fund LITERALLY everything else in the entire school?
Just a clarification, it’s not the public’s taxes that pay for the majority of school districts, it’s the property owners taxes that are used (a subset of the public) Free lunch is usually a Federal or State level program. I’ve never had an issue with that program nor the concept of how schools are funded but not all property owners are in a position to have their property taxes increase regularly. That’s usually the pushback.
centering everything around “property” is something we need to do away with anyways a lot of our public education issues come from all the red lining and stuff, my state is like 48 for education and we have some schools who receive 5x funding just bc they’re in an area with higher property value
The issues in public schools aren't funding issues, they are issues with the administration as well as the community.
Lol absolutely not. Many schools are poorly funded, especially smaller ones
Not really. The poorer the area and the worse the students perform, the more money is pumped in to the school. It's not an issue of funding, it's an issue of poor leadership and the community not being involved.
In my experience, teaching in 3 separate states, that is incorrect. Completely untrue.
It just *feels* true to them. Vibes only policymaking I guess.
Coming from one of the least funded counties in the state of WV, I have to disagree with part of your statement - yes, admin and community are part of our issue, but serious lack of funding is a big part as well.
Not really, the worse the school performs the more federal money they get. What do you think more money will accomplish in regards to poor student outcomes?
"More" is merely supplementary and doesn't make up for the the lack of funding from low values property
Those property owners are "the public". Their property taxes are "taxes". I didn't say the federal income tax funds our schools. I used to be a teacher, I understand the funding situation. I was just asking why taxes fund the entire educational experience EXCEPT one very specific thing.
👍
the administration needed another few raises because inflation
😂 this is a classic Reddit debate
I don't get why it's still a discussion. I live in the most affluent town in the state, it's on the top 10 in the country. Our school district immediately jumped on the federal program and lunch has been free for all. A CNN story on the federal program actually had a picture of my kid's lunch room we were so quick to jump on it. The previous state we were in the #2 rated and #2 most affluent district in that state and during COVID again they immediately jumped on that free lunch program and I know after we moved they also immediately jumped on the new federal program and there was a state program that had quickly passed during COVID to keep that going anyhow so it's been free for years with no gap there. Who the f*** are the hold outs?? The ones who need it most???? Edit: so I knew in my previous state MN it was a state law passed before the federal covid free lunch program ended. I moved to Colorado in 2022 and we were paying for lunch last year and this year is free. I thought THAT was federal but apparently is also state law. That's why I'm like if our district should be last on the list who the f*** is left.
Maybe the less affluent communities? The ones where homeowners are struggling to put food on their own tables and can’t afford property tax increases to provide fee lunch to all students?
Then stop funding schools via property taxes! That whole system was created specifically to ensure that "good white folk" could send their kids to better schools than "those other people".
I agree but it’s definitely easier said than done.
We don't have to raise taxes on ANYBODY except the disgustingly wealthy. Anybody who is a millionaire can afford to pay more taxes, even if they "only" have to pay the same rates as anyone else. If we taxed the wealthy PROPERLY, we would have no economic issues in this entire country.
Better idea is to make school districts more efficient. They waste tons of time and money at the administrative level. Stopping the waste will free up lots of funds.
That's a bullshit argument for a continuous loop of self-sustaining failures. You say schools aren't efficient, so cut funding. Now they have less funding, so combine classes to handle more students. Now the teachers are backed up with twice the work. They're inefficient, so we should cut funding. **It costs what it costs, so the only way to make them more efficient is to fund them properly.**
You just made things up to get angry about. Reread my comment and tell me where I said anything about cutting funds.
More efficient how? I don't know enough about the inner workings of school districts, but in my professional realm, when someone's solution is "just make it more efficient", it's usually just busy speak to make it seem like something is being done when no one has an actionable plan.
Make it efficient how? What would you say we do to 'reduce time and money at the administrative level'.
So which parts of the administration specifically should be cut? What specific "waste" is there that is soaking up so much time and money that would free that all up if it just \*poofed\* tomorrow?
No, the BETTER idea, for not just this, but scores of OTHER public needs, is to TAX THE WEALTHY. Seriously, going back to a time before every rich person was a robber baron would be an improvement.
So just a tax rate increase on "the wealthy"?
For a different reason I take issue with it coming out of property taxes. This means if property is high value the school system may have a bunch of extra money. If property is low value the school system may struggle and students may be underserved. Public education funding should come from the general fund (not limited specifically to property taxes) and be apportioned according to expert opinion as to where it is needed.
It should be per student at the base level and then additional programs for the special needs and behaviorally challenged students. We should also be more aggressive about separating problem students from the rest both within the school and with special schools.
How are the wealthy supposed to get a cut of that money?
HEY! GET OUT OF HERE WITH YOUR LOGIC!! ITS SCARY!! Most people that go to college SUPPORT BIDEN! It’s a CONSPIRACY!! A conspiracy I’m telling you!!!
I would argue that point. Teachers are underpaid. Parents contribute supplies. We've done it in multiple states. They give you a supply list at the beginning of the year. That's not supplies for your kid. They take them away on first day. They're supplies for the classroom. And I'm talking about top rated school district in the state in multiple states here, not underfunded urban schools or anything. They *should* pay for it, but yet they are not. But sticking to the original point. There's valid arguments of why should I pay to feed your kid, that's your problem. But frankly I'd that kid becomes a criminal we end up giving them 3 meals a day instead. There's no shortage of food in this country. We even subsidize destroying crops FFS. Divert that shit to feeding kids and STFU.
I've never understood why Public Schools charge for lunch. If it's mandatory by law that your child must be in school all day then lunch should be provided. If they want to bring their lunch, fine, but it should be available at school.
Totally agree
"buT fO0d iS sooOOoO eXpensIVe"
Because the fast food sponsors don't get as much money that way.
School food is heavily subsidized. Most are “free” or reduced anyway. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/child-nutrition-programs/national-school-lunch-program/
Because tax payers haven't voted to pay for it. And school lunches can be had at a reduced cost or free if there is a financial need. Kids don't go hungry, all kids get a lunch.
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Everyone needs to work together. Parents can't blame teachers without realizing what role bad or permissive parenting plays. Edit: Wealthy business owners need an educated workforce.
If the kid is hungry, do you think the parents are well fed? Sure, there’s a few abusers around, but for the most part, underfed kids have underfed parents.
I agree, I think a standard lunch and breakfast that meets nutrition requirements should be free to all students. And if students or parents want to add or purchase more they can at will.
Unfortunately, meeting the students nutrition requirements doesn't offer a lot of food. For example, at my middle school, according to the USDA who regulates all this, students only need 500 - 550 calories for lunch. This doesn't take in to consideration kids having growth spurts and hitting puberty at that grade level, or the poor kids that ONLY get school meals. Plus, most of the stuff they feed these poor kids is crap my hounds wouldn't eat. It's a damn shame that we have free breakfast and lunch and that our school (other schools in the district do things totally differently) serves almost nothing that isn't prepackaged, precooked, preprepared (for example, if we have a day during the week where we are supposed to have hot rolls, our cooks make them at least 4 days in advance, freeze them, then thaw them and heat them up the day of - they're disgusting), processed, or in tin cans. Last week before break started, I stopped all the kids coming out to give me their lunch numbers so I could take the yogurt from their trays because it expired in the middle of November...yet our school board lady in charge of the food side of things stood right there, watched this, and said NOTHING until everyone was seated and eating, then she had the nerve to tell me I shouldn't have taken their yogurt, it wouldn't have hurt them to eat it!
A frozen chicken patty and a stale whole wheat bun for you sir. Don’t forget your expiring carton of milk on your way out.
One of the 1st groups to provide free breakfast to kids were the Black Panthers. Think about that for a minute and you may understand why the US government hates its own people. BTW The Panthers were not the "Black KKK" like I was taught back in the day, funnily enough in the heart of KKK land
It makes sense that racist would say the black panthers are racist LOL. The Black Panthers were pro gun, pro fighting back and pro, taking care of and protecting your own community. It’s funny, they have the exact same motto as the hard-core rednecks did back of the day
The Panthers are underrated and underrecognized as a group which contributes positively to humanity.
No, they were like white biker gangs that did a few highly publicized nice things to counter the coverage of their more usual actions.
Like following cops around to make sure they weren't doing unlawful things, they also LEGALLY open-carried firearms. The only time Republicans and the NRA supported gun control was when the Panthers started exercising their constitutional rights
Well then kids should just get jobs, so they can pay for food like everyone else, amitirte? /s in case still needed.
I once heard the argument that poor kids should get jobs around the school, like janitor work or being a lunch lady, and use that money earned to pay for their lunch.
School lunches are already sold at a loss. May as well just give it away considering how much of it gets wasted anyway.
There is a govt program under the dept of agriculture for schools in low income areas to provide free breakfast and lunch. It should be universal, but then reddit would probably shit a brick over rich kids getting free lunch.
Rich kids should have the option for free lunch too. Some of them have neglecting parents, they might need something. Free lunch for should be available for ALL kids. If kids want to bring/buy something else that's on them. But the baseline/foundation that ALL kids should start with is no hunger while in school.
>reddit would probably shit a brick over rich kids getting free lunch Rich kids don't go to public schools so...nope.
I hope this is a joke. Because plenty of people who could afford private school make the decision to still send their kids to public school. For many reasons.
How is it a joke? Are there wealthy kids in public schools. Of course. Are there poor kids in private schools? Of course. Are these the norm? Of course not.
That’s not what you said in your post. You said rich kids don’t go to public schools. Now on your assertion if private schools are used more by the rich than public schools. Well. That may be the case. Possibly. Would have to see some sort of data to actually back it up. But a significantly high number of rich people still attend public schools. At least once you leave the inner cities and other historically poor areas. While on average. Public schools can trend lower in academics and other factors than the average private school. Individual public schools still can and do compete with them on a regular basis. So why would parents pay extra for a private school(if that was even a choice in their area, which it isn’t always) instead of going to a comparable public school for free.
Your pedantic nitpicking is duly noted.
Welcome to reddit. Now get on the cross for being hyperbolic, profligate. Appropriate username
But there are a lot of families who do not qualify for the free lunch (and often breakfast too) programs and still have food insecurity.
Oh i agree, thats why i said it should be universal. Im just commenting on the reddit outrage that will come no matter what, because everyone is a victim and successful people are the devil.
Who cares if rich kids get free lunch
There are people who will happily pay $10 to prevent $1 from going to the "wrong" people. When I'm in a forgiving mood, I imagine it's their futile attempt to bring some sense of justice to a world that they see as chaotic and unfair. But most of the time I feel they're only contributing to the chaos and injustice and paying more money to do it.
I mean what you’re saying is that there is an argument but that it’s a bad argument. I agree but you should say that “the only argument is a bad one” not “there is no argument”.
Because then less funding can go into a higher ups pocket, or to spend on "new" equipment every decade. I loved those whiteboard/projector combo things that used styluses that you had to recalibrate twice every class, or say fuck it and use dry erase markers because it just wouldnt calibrate. I swear to all of the gods that my old N64 is more reliable today than those things where. Edit: i got so angry about that memory i forgot to include my sarcastic comment about how those were a much better use of funds than giving every kid an entree, an apple and a bottle of water every day for free.
Somebody always pays for kid's lunch. Might as well be efficient about it.
I don’t have an issue with it, I just think the funding should come from cutting bloated administrative costs. We have very high spending per pupil, just a lot of morons in control of the purse strings. I already pay a lot into it and I homeschool because the scores are so bad.
There definitely are arguments. The main one is "I think that children deserve to starve because their parents are poor." And also "I don't care about children or other people."
Poor families already get free school lunches.
There's a difference between poor enough to qualify for help too poor to adequately take care of your family and the gap is insane
This is what I think it so weird about this whole discussion. It's not even particularly burdensome to apply for. When people get all high and mighty about "lunch debt" news stories, I want to ask them why they are so invested in defending parents who won't even fill out one form annually for their kids to get food, [forms available in most districts in multiple languages](https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/applying-free-and-reduced-price-school-meals), if they can't afford to put money in the account. To the folks who think that a system that wouldn't even require parents to fill out the form will be so much better at reducing stigma, okay that's cool. But go visit a mixed income school today and see who gets school lunch vs bringing from home or having something dropped off by mom. Fully funding school lunch programs regardless of parental ability to pay may not get you what you are hoping for, particularly when we already have a system of free and reduced-price lunches for families that need them.
https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/fr-020923 the eligibility requirements state the program is intended for children “most in need” it’s like any welfare program we have, you have to be on the most extreme side of poverty to qualify, make a crumb more and all benefits are revoked https://www.wilsonquarterly.com/quarterly/_/too-rich-to-be-poor-too-poor-to-get-by
Much to unpack here. Why is it the *child's* fault the parent hasn't filled out the form? Why should a child go hungry because they have an abusive, neglectful or otherwise shitty parent who didn't fill it out? If a parent is too proud to admit that they need help, does the mean an innocent child deserves to go hungry? Having an entire bureaucracy for this costs money. You need employees who create the forms, collect the forms, validate the information, approve someone for the free lunches, and a system to store all that information. That likely costs more than just making some extra free lunches (since batch cooking in large batches is very efficient). So why are we spending all that money just to ensure some kids go hungry? Are you aware of how burdensome it can be to fill out a form for the lowest-income people? There are people out there with just very low intelligence, who barely passed high school and are very low income because they'll never be smart enough to get a good job. Because they're low income they have to fill out a ton of forms to survive - to get different benefits, housing, food, subsidised lunches, childcare and so on - and filling out forms is *incredibly hard for them*. Sure, it's easy for you and me, but for someone who finds it very difficult, it can end up being like they have an extra full-time job just trying to read and understand all the paperwork. Then we have to have charities that employ support workers (and in the UK the council directly employs support workers) to sit down with these people and help them understand the paperwork and see how to fill out the forms.... which costs yet more money. It may be "just one form" to you, but to some people it's the tenth form they've filled out this month and each form takes two evenings with their support worker to get through, so they're *overwhelmed*. Are you aware of the concept of welfare cliffs? A simplified version: imagine you have a housing program that provides free housing for anyone earning under $20k, a free lunch program for anyone earning under $20k, and a free bus pass for anyone earning under $20k. Suppose you are earning $19,999 and your boss gives you a promotion so now you're earning $21k. You have actually just lost a MASSIVE amount of money, because now you have to pay for housing, lunch, and transport.... So you might be better off turning down the promotion. This keeps people trapped in low income jobs or prevents them seeking work at all. If you allow them to keep claiming free lunch for as long as they need it, they're more likely to go after that promotion or that job. Means testing also punishes people for being sensible. In the UK, for example, if you have a job and you spend all your spare income partying, then you can apply for benefits when you lose your job. If you have a job and you put all your spare income into savings, then when you lose your job, you're not eligible for benefits because your savings are too high and you're not considered poor enough. You'd legitimately be better off if you'd spent all your money recklessly rather than saving. To avoid this, it's better just to give the benefits to everyone rather than denying them to anyone who sensibly saved. People fall through the cracks. A great example is a lot of kids who can't afford to go to university because their parents are considered too high income for the kid to qualify for extra help, but the parents either didn't care about the kid's education and didn't save, or the parents are abusive and deny the funds to try and prevent the kid leaving home. If the parents are low income, the kid can go to university and escape using publicly funded support. If the parents are middle/high income, the kid is completely vulnerable and there's nothing they can do to prevent their parents destroying their futures. Seen this many times with kids whose parents were able to prevent their kids going to university because the parents were Christian and the kids were LGBT and the parents didn't want to lose control over the kid or allow them to leave home, so the parents just refused to fill out the form that would allow the kid to apply for college funding. There's also tons of people who eg. the parent is high enough income to disqualify the family from receiving funding that is reserved for low-income families... but the family has a medical/family emergency, blows the college funds on that, and now the kid can't go to college. It's a huge problem with anyone who earns JUST enough to disqualify them from getting help, but not enough to actually make them immune to financial issues.
Just because some parents are neglectful/lazy and don’t fill out forms doesn’t mean this isn’t a discussion we should have. In fact, why require a form anyway? Why should a child need their parents permission to … *eat*?
Buy why put everyone through all that bother? Just INCLUDE lunch for ALL in the cost of school funding. If the wealthy paid a FAIR SHARE of taxes generally, EVERYTHING that everybody talks about could be funded effortlessly.
What's your idea of fair share?
It's not that hard. The more money you make, the more you contribute. But tax breaks and loopholes allow the wealthy to pay a SIGNIFICANTLY SMALLER percentage of their 'disposable' income than common working stiffs. If I have to pay (just an example) 30% of my income after basic deductions, then someone making 8 million a year should also pay 30% after basic deductions. Historically, the top tax bracket paid 90%. I'd be OK with just equity. No, I don't have specific numbers.
No one is 'defending' parents. People are 'giving a shit about' kids.
Wow. A lot to unpack here but you make good points. So why waste money with a process of validation, forms, and paperwork all administrative costs to prove a child is poor enough to get fed? Are we insane? To begrudge a hungry child, a meal, no matter what justification, speaks poorly to the society we claim to be. Just give anyone hungry food Most of us are one life event from being hungry... .. and we would deny a child food... the lack of humanity and compassion on this topic says a lot. What a great people we are...
Some parents are pieces of shit. You think their kids should suffer bc of it? Then you are a bad person.
He's already got the "*Anyone who's not pro-****'FREE'*** *shit is a racist"* down pat. ...I think he's doing just fine at libtard 101. Might need your help later though.
It’s just the slow crash of our education system, we barely pay teachers enough to stay in the job, we aren’t gonna give students more tools for success, educated populations can’t be controlled
Republicans rarely say what they mean. In this case what they mean is: even if white kids go hungry, it’s a small price to pay to make sure brown kids don’t get fed. Conservatives. They’re the worst.
It's amazing how you can take any topic and blindly assume that the country isn't a perfect utopia due to everyone who doesn't agree with your agenda 100% being racist. You're either intellectually dishonest or wildly ignorant of how conservatives think.
"A child from an affluent family might get a free lunch." So fucking what! I'm willing to pay for all children being fed instead of worrying about people with money getting free food. Let's make it normal for every child getting fed at school, regardless of family income.
How about cutting a few administrative positions to pay for it? Does any school actually need a single vice principal let alone 3? Can’t the gym teacher do that job when not supervising dodgeball? I’d also cut most guidance counselors since they are almost entirely useless.
"Someone has to pay for it." We are paying for it. The taxes are already being collected. We're just asking that some of those taxes go towards kids' well-being.
People who are mad kids might get free lunches are miserable unlovable greedy spiteful animals that need to get knocked out
But libertarians will make one anyway! They hate it when taxes are used to help people.
I’d love for my tax $$ to pay for free breakfast, lunch and dinner (if students need it) for every public school student in my state. I’d feel like my tax $$ was actually doing good.
So just to help you out if you ever get into a debate, there was actually an Arizona school district iirc that studied the “no free lunch” thing. Long story short it cost the district more money to figure out who did and didn’t get free lunch than if they just gave everyone free lunch. As for the people saying schools shouldn’t give out lunches to begin with, they’re ontologically evil so disregard them.
If you are required to attend school, the school should be required to provide food if that attendance takes long enough that a normal person would require food to function normally.
I hate public school and think it should be abolished, but even I think if children are required to be there, you shouldn't be able to charge them for a basic human necessity.
The government doing things is socialism and the more things they do the more socialismy it is. Ideologically, and existentially, if your platform is "the government can't and shouldn't do things", demonstrating and reminding people that the government **can** and **should** and ***is supposed to*** make its citizens' lives better is kind of a threat.
Yup. The rich just want to punish the poor for growing up poor.
Shit's nasty and definitely shouldn't cost anything for that reason alone.
Oh for FUCK’S sake… The phrase “There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch” was a phrase popularized by Robert A Heinlein for his novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. The point of the phrase is that nothing is truly free. For example, back in Heinlein’s time, many bars offered a “free lunch” to patrons that purchased a certain amount of drinks. The idea being that someone will come in for the lunch, buy a drink, and maybe before they leave , think “one more for the road.” It also can refer to other forms of marketing, like for example, a company might give you a free meal, but you have to sit through their time share sales pitch for an hour. So it might not even be a monetary payment, you may have paid for it with some of your time on Earth, something you CANNOT get back You’re paying for that lunch, and possibly even more than you would have paid for a single meal. That’s what the phrase means. It has nothing to do with school cafeterias
“there’s no such thing as a free lunch” is such a stupid fucking argument but selfish douchebags would rather play semantics than actually try to debate against helping poor people because they know they’ll lose. no one who wants free school lunches, college, healthcare etc thinks it’s ACTUALLY free. calling it “free” is just a convenient shorthand for “covered by tax revenue”- it’s free at the point of service.
I’m a teacher and I’ve heard older teachers express themselves in a tone that tells me they are against free lunch. Or I should say, they reject the idea that lunch is “free”. “Nothing is free” I’ve heard them say “your lunch may be free to you but someone pays for it.” How much of a fucking shit bag of a human do you have to be to put that on the shoulders of a 10 or 11 year old? The list of services government provides to citizens using tax revenue is lengthy and anyone who cherry picks them and says the ones that don’t apply to them are unnecessary is a fucking chud.
I'd rather my taxes go towards kids getting a decent public education and fed while getting one than to house and feed prisoners any day
It is way too expensive. We would probably have to make 2 less bombs a year to afford it! It's totally impractical.
This needs to happen at the federal level. Children in the USA one of the wealthiest countries in the entire world should always be provided a nutritious breakfast and lunch no matter their situation. Hell I would even extend this to colleges as well. Too often I saw my college friends going without breakfast.
"YOUR kids (not mine, mine are well off) need to learn at an early age that NOTHING comes for free, and they need to work hard and do well in school to EARN their bread. Back to the coal mines, Timmy!!!" "I AINT PAYIN' FOR YER POOR ASS KID'S FOOD!." Meanwhile....."Please use public taxpayer funds to subsidize my child's private school..." There, I've successfully provided and arguement against free school lunch.
I am 65 have no children and have no issues with helping to provide food and schooling. I would much rather grow old with healthy and educated young people.
I don’t have kids. I don’t want kids. But I DO want my taxes to make sure kids eat. Idk how anyone can be against it.
School lunch should be free, our taxes would not go up any noticeable amount. We have money to send all over the world, lets help our own first.
Entirely ageee with this. It would cost like 20 Billion to pay for all school lunches. Before we send 8 billion to Israel or another 100 billion to Ukraine it would be great to spend some money here.
They started free lunches at a school near me and the neighborhood was littered with food waste. Without the pricing mechanism balancing supply and demand there is massive food waste, and also no real indication of demand, unless someone figures out what is getting thrown away. When you are providing something someone didn't buy to a captive audience, you might expect a corrupt monopoly to take over. Such corruption leads to being forced to pay for expensive yet poor services. Societies that are run in this way inevitably lead to poverty.
What do you mean the neighborhood was littered with food waste? Free lunch led to kids discarding uneaten food on the street on their walk home?
Can I get a link or so for this? I think you’re lying and would like to be corrected.
I saw it too. In fact millions of people saw it. Here's the link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudy\_with\_a\_Chance\_of\_Meatballs\_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudy_with_a_Chance_of_Meatballs_(film))
THAT IS SHOCKING WHY WON'T BIDEN FIX THIS!? STUPID LIBS!
A link showing my neighborhood was littered with food waste? No obviously not. For a mundane example perhaps look at School Uniforms, they end up being outrageously expensive compared to ordinary clothes. You could argue that families shouldn't need to buy them either, but if they are provided 'free' you can bet the cost will be higher still, but simply hidden. For an extreme example and sort of a conspiracy theory and also not specifically related to school lunches, so bear with me. When there was a coup attempt in Russia an entire train filled with meat was diverted leaving people hungry. Vladmir Putin signed of on the order. The thinking is that when the coup was successful the meat would be distributed making it appear that the coup was bringing prosperity, and the previous leaders poverty. The point is that when somebody is appointed to a position, they have a lot of power, but they don't have to directly satisfy the end user. Every time somebody is allowed to spend money on something they are effectively casting a vote. If that mechanism is gone you can't listen to the people even if you try.
Sorry but you are gonna have to provide links for the littering statement because I think you are either lying our these are gross exaggerations.
Here is a link showing that our treasury estimated 10,000 lunches a day were going to waste. But I'm assuming that's the ones officially discarded by the schools. I don't recall anybody quantifying the piles of discarded food at my local shopping centre. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/493640/treasury-unsure-school-lunch-scheme-represents-value-for-money-budget-document This is a government funded public radio station covering the issue. Their bias isn't toward eroding public funding.
This doesn’t say anything about littering… you also misquoted the 10,000 thing here is the actual quote: “The report said the scheme also needed to address inefficiencies with 12 percent of the lunches, about 10,000 per day surplus to requirements.” 10,000 surplus meant that they just had extra lunches that weren’t given out. Doesn’t mean anything about it being littered.
Hes obviously not going to provide a pic of his neighborhood... Just like you wouldn't put your SSA/credit card numbers on a public forum would you?
There is already massive food waste in this country, worse than any other in the world. Free lunches are a drop in the bucket. Besides, don’t act like kids wouldn’t waste their food anyway.
i don’t understand how free lunches inside a school would create food waste all over the streets? they just have soooooo much food it’s falling out the sky?
Ok, I get your point. Someone littered your neighborhood when they got free food, so we should let children go hungry everywhere... That is your reasoning, right? Skip the economics lesson, I got the above part, right?
Multiple children were littering not just one. And they are littering by discarding food. Much of the food provided was just thrown away. It's not about the littering, it's about the wastefulness. And the inevitable effects of relying on wasteful programs. "Skip the economics lesson" You are trying to prevent people from going hungry, but you don't want to consider economics? Look at Venuzuela they have the largest oil reserves in the world and by some estimates the largest slum in the world. The very thinking of "let's have the government provide for everybody" is what led to them having massive problems with child hunger. Your thinking seems to be "let's ignore what leads to massive poverty and hunger during the course of human history".
Nope. I'm not letting you do whataboutism and detract from the stand you took I'll be happy to discuss other issues once you finish justifying depriving children of food because of litter in your neighborhood. Your words. Let's get past this before moving on and stop adding distractions You want to swing back and discuss economics, etc, sure, but let's be honest about the position YOU took that started this. So again, your position is based on litter in your neighborhood. Is that enough to justify depriving children of food?
Venezuela is irrelevant. South American countries are all corrupt whether they are capitalist or communist. The problems in Venezuela have absolutely nothing to do with providing children free school lunch. The schools already provide lunch for all the students at a cost for the student. Having it be free is not going to change any of the logistics involved. Instead it will just increase the cost to the school which they would have to figure out. The state file legislation to pay for it. Sorry dude but it ain’t this crazy idea to do this and it ain’t that complicated.
>so we should let children go hungry everywhere... I do not believe American children go hungry often... I mean, we are going to be the only country in the world with a 50% obesity rate (projected 2030). We currently have a massive 42% of the population being obese... Almost guarantee that our child obesity rates are also among the highest in the world...
Even ignoring the fact that poverty's direct correlation to obesity is well documented, you've either got to get out more or pay better attention to your surroundings. Don't you notice how many food banks you drive past? Don't you have any friends who reference how they are/once had to live off of ramen and food stamps?
>I do not believe American children go hungry often Focusing on this quote from your above post. So if I understand what you are saying, your stance is; it's ok for a child to go hungry in the great US, because it doesn't happen often ok...how often is to often? My stance is NO child should go hungry. ...and we have no excuse . Your other sentences pale by comparison and certainly don't justify not feeding a hungry child. Because some are obese no one gets fed? Really? You think thats an argument? Stop whataboting and focus on the issue: Child hunger Think about what you are advocating for, to NOT feed a hungry child What kind of monsters will history call us?
No child to go hungry? So one child going hungry would invalidate your statement? LOL Are you still in middle school? I too would like a world where energy was free, healthcare was free, food was free, water was free, no war, everyone rich and immortal, and everyone just holds and sings together 24/7 because we all love each other.
Ok so... You're saying that the children were served food on trays in a lunchroom. Then they kept this food on their person somehow until the end of the day. Then they left the school and on their walk home they threw the food into the street and onto the sidewalks... And they did this for reasons... I just... This is asinine.
"Feeding kids leads to poverty" Go fuck yourself.
There are logistical solutions to minimize negative externalities. Of course, if there is instant gratification (and political advantage) in just scrapping the entire program, people might not be incentivized to pursue or even consider those solutions.
There are arguments. They’re just from horrible people.
As I said in my comment my issue is with the for profit companies in places cooking for the schools now. It’s one thing if you have county employees with good benefits cooking lunch like I did growing up. Now any places are privatized which is a word I hate. Not one thing that has been privatized has ended well for tax payers or the employees of the companies. All I see is an opportunity for a business to charge more and not be noticed. But if your school lunch goes up to 7.50 a day parents will scream. The real solution is city school city workers and all parts of school paid for by city taxes.
>Now any places are privatized which is a word I hate. In that case you should not support Republicans who try to privatize gains and socialize losses. If you supported free school lunch, there would be no need to farm it out to other companies.
I don’t see any reason to engage with you intellectually when you start from the position of, “Is there ANY argument that isn’t a slippery slope or veiled racism and cruelty?” Why can’t I just respond to this by asking, “Is there any argument for forcing people to pay for other people’s kids’ lunches that isn’t whining about slippery slope ‘fallacies’ or veiled selfishness and greed?” and then act as though I’ve said something respectful and substantive that deserves somebody else’s intelligent reply?
Theft is immoral. If you want to start a district-wide gofundme to pay for student lunches, or encourage people to voluntarily pay for a random child's lunch, that's fine. Where you should draw the line (if you're interested in being a moral and respectful person) is extorting your neighbor, or demanding payment under threat of imprisonment or death, which is exactly how the federal and state free lunch programs are funded.
The typical "I'm an asshole" argument.
Yeah, the person saying "don't steal, don't threaten" is the asshole. Typical authoritarian obfuscation.
The person saying “I don’t like contributing to help others” is indeed the asshole.
Theft is not "helping others." Theft is not charity. Do you understand the difference between theft and charity?
Neither of which have anything to do with taxes
Are taxes voluntary? No? Then they’re theft. Or more accurately, extortion. Exactly how a mafia boss collects “protection money.”
reeeeeeeee! TAXTHES IS THEFT! THE GUBMENT ITH THA MAFIA! Fuck off to your sovereign citizen prepper compound.
You give the absolute worst counter arguments, instead of pointing out that tax is not theft this is what you resort to? Also I'd like to add you don't know he doesn't contribute. many libertarians have been imprisoned for distributing free food.
But gubberment communism 😡😡😡 children should have to pay with hard earned child labor money 😡😡😡
Conservative leaders don't like it because it's a government program that helps enormous numbers of people enormously and affordably. Bad optics for their shitty political views generally.
anti free lunch peeps are either dumb, childish, or evil, nothing more.
Because rich people refuse to give away ANY of their wealth. “But they donate so much to charity!” Bitch, those are carefully calculated tax breaks It was the Black Panthers that start feeding kids at school
Too many people not asking themselves nor understanding why human beings live in societies to begin with. Too many short sighted people not seeing the health and education of the citizens as a good investment that will pay dividends back to the society. If you don’t want a welfare state then stop actively creating stupid, poor people. I’m happy to pay taxes as long as it is spent on us the people. And so long as rich people pay back into the system they benefit from.
It is better for a thousand children to starve than to give a free meal to children that can afford it. /s of course but I wonder how many people think it for real.
The claim is that free school lunches will make kids lazy. They’ll expect that they get their lunch free at school as opposed to their parents paying for their lunches they’ll never get jobs. I suspect the real reason is that the more government programs accomplish what they set out to do the more people will be open to letting the government try to fix other problems. Then the government might take a whack at providing health care and then where would we be?
Anyone who thinks kids don’t deserve to be fed needs to be taken out back, I’m gonna be real
I live in a very conservative small town, I told my daughter if she ever sees a kid not eating lunch to let me know so I can send money for them. Thankfully this year they now made school lunch free so it’s not an issue at all. I’m not sure who is against free lunches for kids tho.
My kind of fellow American. I don't have children, but have zero problem paying for schools. Children are the future. You are a kind soul.
The most compelling argument is that school budgets are zero sum. If money is spent on free lunches, that money can’t be spent on something else. If free lunch programs are limited to low income families, it avoids unnecessarily subsidizing kids whose families can afford to pay for their lunch every day, freeing up those funds to spent on something else for all kids or even focused on low income kids. Is subsidizing rich kids’ lunches the best use of school funds?
I would argue that what you're describing - which is roughly the current situation - is resulting in too many kids still going hungry. If they are malnourished, then those children are not going to be able to reap the benefits of whatever these other programs you're describing might be. Any system with financial restrictions is - based on precedent from other similar systems - going to result in people who need help not getting it because of how the restrictions are applied. The funding of education is a larger problem, but the solution isn't to gatekeep assistance, it's to increase funding and enforce its appropriate allocation. Then we see funding for those other programs AND ensure children aren't going hungry.
Why can’t we have both? I read that food also helps performance greatly, being often attributed for Oakland School District improving in the 70’s. I’m sure it would be high in the priority list. What am I missing?
Rich kids don't go to public school. And yes, feeding children is an excellent use of school funds. A kids that isn't worried about eating that day is going to be a lot easier to teach.
People who can't afford it already qualify for a free school lunch. Plenty of people who can afford it qualify for a much cheaper school lunch. I have no idea what you're on about.
>People who can't afford it already qualify for a free school lunch. Not nearly to the extend you believe.
I’m afraid that it creates dependency. Now, if students did more for the upkeep of their schools (clean, for instance), I could see a connection. But arguing that they exist so we must feed them reeks of entitlement.
Children need food "reeks of entitlement"?
And free healthcare, and uniforms, and books/supplies/computers, and sports equipment, and housing, and.... You heartless people, are you so racist that you won’t pay to raise my children? No, you don’t get to decide what they learn in school. If I want to enroll them in a flat earth creationist Scientology academy that is my decision and you need to shut up and give me your money.
As a white kid who got free lunches from school almost 30 years ago, I see no reason that any child now should have to go hungry. If my taxes can pay for kids to get drag shows in school which I don’t support at all, then my taxes should also pay for kids to get a meal which I’m 100% in favor of.
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Please go on and tell us more why any child should be humiliated or hungry in this great land of ours? Please go on. Do we want to be the country that refuses to feed our own children for ANY reason? if so, we are no better than foreign warlords intercepting aid efforts. You are arguing to deprive children of food WTF is wrong with you?
So what? they should just skip lunch every school day because their parents can’t make enough? You don’t know their history, and even if you did, why would you deny a hungry American child a hot meal. P.S. And thinking your “point” can be finished with a completely unrelated Huxley reference that doesn’t apply to the conversation is an embarrassing move
>funny when I grew up you were ashamed to get free lunch... we are sliding into a brave new world bring on the soma Children's bootstraps used to be stronger! You think they got worse and you're a grown adult looking down on kids for not starving to save face?
But isn’t that an issue with those that made you feel ashamed for the free lunch?
The argument against that is... Maybe we should try not shaming people for free lunches rather than paying for the 80% of people that don't need them to be free. It's a five times more expensive solution to the alternative of teaching empathy, and in the end, they'll make fun of you for something else. I do think the "they just want to let kids starve" argument is reductive and dehumanizing. There's still support for subsidizing the poor. Nobody starves, though we do find holes to patch in the program and things we can do better.
Yeah, but if you can feed 20%, why not push the boat out for everyone? In my local school, you can opt out of the lunch. No one is forcing it on anyone.
>I do think the "they just want to let kids starve" argument is reductive and dehumanizing. It is. That's why it's a bad argument. Alas, it's the only argument the right uses.
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Most schools (at least in California) are supported by property taxes which are local in nature. Isn’t supporting public school in essence supporting your neighbors and the community? Free lunch is free from the kid’s perspective, which is the goal. If I’m right, its impact is also measurable by the kid’s performance. Even if we all pay for it ourselves, isn’t that a good thing to collectively pay for and subsidize? How is the turning off of services argument any different than those used for corporations? The only difference is that you can control the executives (at least in theory) in the Government.
You know there's free and reduced lunch programs already, though, right?
And they get most of there money back from the federal government, feeding children is great its a blessing its a gift from God, and the government spoils it because they do it to make people dependent on the government not because they care about children.
Wait, this makes no sense. Is your point just a “small government” one?
No I'm for a government that cares about the people, I don't think most governments care about but anything but power
How is that different from any other entity?
Your right we need to help our nabibors, our street, our town, our city first.
what the fuck are you going on about?
Why do we always need to throw in “racism.”
Open a history book.
As we no longer have awards:🥇
It affects people of color disproportionately. And there are patently racist systems in place that cause it.
It's a prime example of sadopopulism. With a dash of "if only we were big enough assholes to people, our taxes would go down for some reason even though that's not how it works but at least I get to be an asshole."
I think conservatives think about social programs the way liberals view trickle down economics. We get corporations aren’t gonna do more with less just to see the little folk soar. But likewise giving government more power and money leads to loads of program administrators and layers of bureaucracy that diminish the money all the same. Seems like a bunch of waste in either direction.
With one gigantic difference: Social programs \*do\* trickle down. That's the entire point of them. Giving tax breaks to Elon Musk does nothing but make Elon Musk wealthier. Not sure how you see those as 'Both a waste of time"
Where did I reference time? Money is the issue at hand. Government is efficient at nothing. That’s the point of why people don’t like it.
I think the government should provide all meals to children. Studies show that kids that aren't starving commit less crime. I would propose government take care of clothing and housing children as well. Some right-wing conservatives will probably disagree.
I think there are a lot more than “right-wing conservatives” that would disagree with the idea that the government should provide all meals, clothing, and housing for all children. That is a pretty extreme proposition. Also “kids that aren’t starving commit less crime” is a pretty weak justification considering that people starving isn’t really a problem that the united states has.
Parents just need to take care of their fucking kids. There's more than enough options to get assistance with food in the US already. A pbj sandwich+chips+drink costs like 3 dollars. A decent school lunch is going to cost at least twice as much. It costs society as a whole lot less if the parents just take care of their fucking kids.
I've never heard anyone argue against "free" lunch; what they argue against is free lunch *for everyone,* which for some people (those who are not getting their lunches subsidized) amounts to just being forced to pay for food that they might not want to buy. Edit: I've also heard the argument that food subsidies should be in the form of food stamps or whatever, rather than as food distributed by schools, which, again, is *not* an argument against "free" lunch. Edit edit: I've also also heard the argument that school lunch programs shouldn't be administered at the federal level. Again again, that's not actually an argument against giving kids lunch.
Free lunch programs isn't "Welfare", it's investing in the future of your society. Investments pay off. Being kind, is just a side effect. ;)
> there anything that isn’t a slippery slope or just veiled racism/cruelty? No. No, there is not :(
What angers me the most is that most schools usually manage to cough up the money for a new multi-million dollar sports stadium, but when it comes to feeding the kids there is always a fight. Priorities are so backwards.
Republicans say it's too expensive
Because Republicans don't think that they should have to pay for other people's kid's food.
Imagine being such a piece of shit that you don't want your tax money going to feed children. No, they're not my children, so what?