We've known for almost a century that free school lunches work best when every kid gets one. My dad, born in 1931, got a free school lunch even though his family didn't need it. Not only did every kid get free lunch, but they had to eat everything on the plate. This caused Dad to form a life long aversion to stewed prunes.
Is this part of their “children are punishment” stance? “If you can’t afford them, don’t have them” magic where the children will disappear if expensive?
When the school where I worked went to all free lunch, there were ostensibly liberal people who were mad. “_Those people_ can afford to pay for their kids’ lunch! They spend their money on the wrong things!” We had free breakfast too, and my only annoyance with that was that they took teacher prep time up with supervising it and still pretended it was prep.
I pointed out that the district was literally saving money by not having four people who had to track lunch accounts and one whose whole job was managing the program, and the liberals were swayed. I held my tongue about the classism that made them insist that it was somehow shameful to accept free school lunch.
This is the dumbest argument. Why shouldn’t schoolchildren be fed by the state that requires them to attend school?
I'm fortunate/unfortunate enough to live in Louisiana, where we just elected a right wing extremist governor, Jeff Landry. He's axed a food assistance program from the feds, refusing the funds. There was an article from the local paper shared on facebook, saying that a local restaurant had stepped up to provide free Easter meals for families in response to the cuts. The number of mean-spirited, ugly, resentful comments about this ("lazy parents," etc.) was so fucking depressing. There really are people out there who don't have a problem with kids going hungry.
The New Testament couldn't have more nice things to say about how God wants you to treat the poor with kindness. I'll never understand why so many Christians are hell-bent on punishing the poor just for existing.
One of the few things good things I can say about Los Angeles unified in the 90s (and my parental units) was they did have their shit together for free/reduced lunch. Wasn't great but if your hungry your hungry. Big fan of kids nowadays not having to try and hide their "poor tickets".
My son had free school lunch, because he was a former foster child. (It was a benefit he was entitled to, and we pay taxes.) I was glad that all he ever had to do was say “Prepaid” to the cashier.
The other big thing about universal versus means-tested benefits of any description is that there are people who feel stigmatised by claiming means-tested benefits, even if they need them, so they don't claim. Universal benefits don't have that stigma.
i never went to a school that had a cafeteria until high school.
high school was interesting . . . there seemed to be a tiny kitchen, short serving line and a (very) few seats . . . i can't remember ever seeing any food there but there seemed to be a (possibly imaginary) lunch lady.
In elementary school (approximately 250 students at ours), we had long tables with built-in seats that pulled out from the gymnasium wall for lunch periods. In junior high (roughly 400 kids), there was an actual cafeteria in the basement of the building, with a cafeteria line of food and servers and a shitload of round tables with eight chairs each. In high school (about 900-1,000 students), we had a huge cafeteria area, but the actual cafeteria line was pretty small with maybe one or two proverbial "lunch ladies" serving up a few items—but our school was within a block of two fast-food restaurants and most kids just went to those (except for breakfast, where they had the yummiest cinnamon rolls about the size of your head for 50 cents, which you could pay for on the spot [meaning no pre-purchased tickets or having an account of any kind]). Prices were reasonable.
But when MY kids started going to school roughly 20 years after I started, school lunch prices had increased (as they would) and just kept climbing while the quality of food declined. By the time my youngest was in high school (2009-2011), he'd just walk home for lunch rather than have me pay the $15/week because of our dire financial circumstances at the time. I'm glad that my grandkids now have free lunch for all, because, Mike Lindell aside, Minnesota does seem to remain pretty sane.
Too bad school lunches in the U.S. don't really include a lot of, say "food". Michelle Obama tried to change that, but the fucking hot dog and pizza lobbyists put a stop to that.
The food at my high school was truly vile. Like inedible. I'm always amazed at school lunch from other countries. They get to eat things that seem shockingly close to real food! While I and many other kids chose a Snickers bar over the swill they tried to feed us.
"Republicans won’t have to stay up at night worrying about anyone “undeserving” getting a pork pattie..."
In the US, both Ds and Rs go in for means testing (testing how mean they can be?), and I wonder if just providing services, and assuming some people will "cheat" or take more than they "deserve" isn't cheaper in the long run than trying to weed out the deserving and undeserving among us.
The fraud is not the point. Obviously. The point is to drown the government in a bathtub... except when it comes to cops and the military. Democrats and the MSM need to iterate, and reiterate this point ad nauseam. It needs to be taken from the arena of a million little points, the arena of One Big Point: Republicans don't want the government to do ANYthing for you.
Exactly. Though it seems both US parties are stuck in that old Protestant work ethic thinking and distinguisgh between the deserving and undeserving poor, as if anyone deserves to starve or go cold in winter or..
Ta, Robyn. My one true love is a public school teacher. My best friend started teaching public school in 1967; he finally retired but still does some teaching at the local university. Kids. Need. Food.
Correct. Means testing for tax cuts! If you make more than a gabillion dollars you need to pay your taxes, period ... no matter what dodges you can exploit. I would be in favour of a 2 column system to calculating tax.
In column 1 it says "You are responsible for X wealth accumulation for the year, therefore your tax rate is between A (high) and B (low). A is the starting point for what you owe and B is fixed at 85% of A".
Column 2 says "here are all the loopholes you may claim to lower your Tax owed from A to B".
And it doesn't matter how many deductions you claim in column 2, you cannot lower it below "B" in column 1.
Reduces a lot of incentive to hide income, or play games at the edges of the tax rate, and applies across the board.
We've known for almost a century that free school lunches work best when every kid gets one. My dad, born in 1931, got a free school lunch even though his family didn't need it. Not only did every kid get free lunch, but they had to eat everything on the plate. This caused Dad to form a life long aversion to stewed prunes.
Is this part of their “children are punishment” stance? “If you can’t afford them, don’t have them” magic where the children will disappear if expensive?
When the school where I worked went to all free lunch, there were ostensibly liberal people who were mad. “_Those people_ can afford to pay for their kids’ lunch! They spend their money on the wrong things!” We had free breakfast too, and my only annoyance with that was that they took teacher prep time up with supervising it and still pretended it was prep.
I pointed out that the district was literally saving money by not having four people who had to track lunch accounts and one whose whole job was managing the program, and the liberals were swayed. I held my tongue about the classism that made them insist that it was somehow shameful to accept free school lunch.
This is the dumbest argument. Why shouldn’t schoolchildren be fed by the state that requires them to attend school?
I'm fortunate/unfortunate enough to live in Louisiana, where we just elected a right wing extremist governor, Jeff Landry. He's axed a food assistance program from the feds, refusing the funds. There was an article from the local paper shared on facebook, saying that a local restaurant had stepped up to provide free Easter meals for families in response to the cuts. The number of mean-spirited, ugly, resentful comments about this ("lazy parents," etc.) was so fucking depressing. There really are people out there who don't have a problem with kids going hungry.
Unfortunately sanity went out the window with Gov. Bel Edwards. Landry's another ignorant MAGA turd.
The New Testament couldn't have more nice things to say about how God wants you to treat the poor with kindness. I'll never understand why so many Christians are hell-bent on punishing the poor just for existing.
“Truly, if poor people were half as good at fraud as Republicans…”
No possible, “Republican” thy name is fraud.
One of the few things good things I can say about Los Angeles unified in the 90s (and my parental units) was they did have their shit together for free/reduced lunch. Wasn't great but if your hungry your hungry. Big fan of kids nowadays not having to try and hide their "poor tickets".
My son had free school lunch, because he was a former foster child. (It was a benefit he was entitled to, and we pay taxes.) I was glad that all he ever had to do was say “Prepaid” to the cashier.
The other big thing about universal versus means-tested benefits of any description is that there are people who feel stigmatised by claiming means-tested benefits, even if they need them, so they don't claim. Universal benefits don't have that stigma.
i never went to a school that had a cafeteria until high school.
high school was interesting . . . there seemed to be a tiny kitchen, short serving line and a (very) few seats . . . i can't remember ever seeing any food there but there seemed to be a (possibly imaginary) lunch lady.
not bad for a school with about 400 students.
free lunch for every student . . . i'm for it!
In elementary school (approximately 250 students at ours), we had long tables with built-in seats that pulled out from the gymnasium wall for lunch periods. In junior high (roughly 400 kids), there was an actual cafeteria in the basement of the building, with a cafeteria line of food and servers and a shitload of round tables with eight chairs each. In high school (about 900-1,000 students), we had a huge cafeteria area, but the actual cafeteria line was pretty small with maybe one or two proverbial "lunch ladies" serving up a few items—but our school was within a block of two fast-food restaurants and most kids just went to those (except for breakfast, where they had the yummiest cinnamon rolls about the size of your head for 50 cents, which you could pay for on the spot [meaning no pre-purchased tickets or having an account of any kind]). Prices were reasonable.
But when MY kids started going to school roughly 20 years after I started, school lunch prices had increased (as they would) and just kept climbing while the quality of food declined. By the time my youngest was in high school (2009-2011), he'd just walk home for lunch rather than have me pay the $15/week because of our dire financial circumstances at the time. I'm glad that my grandkids now have free lunch for all, because, Mike Lindell aside, Minnesota does seem to remain pretty sane.
Too bad school lunches in the U.S. don't really include a lot of, say "food". Michelle Obama tried to change that, but the fucking hot dog and pizza lobbyists put a stop to that.
The food at my high school was truly vile. Like inedible. I'm always amazed at school lunch from other countries. They get to eat things that seem shockingly close to real food! While I and many other kids chose a Snickers bar over the swill they tried to feed us.
"Republicans won’t have to stay up at night worrying about anyone “undeserving” getting a pork pattie..."
In the US, both Ds and Rs go in for means testing (testing how mean they can be?), and I wonder if just providing services, and assuming some people will "cheat" or take more than they "deserve" isn't cheaper in the long run than trying to weed out the deserving and undeserving among us.
Republicans also never seem to mentionthat means testing and preventing "fraud" cost more than the "fraud".
The fraud is not the point. Obviously. The point is to drown the government in a bathtub... except when it comes to cops and the military. Democrats and the MSM need to iterate, and reiterate this point ad nauseam. It needs to be taken from the arena of a million little points, the arena of One Big Point: Republicans don't want the government to do ANYthing for you.
Exactly. Though it seems both US parties are stuck in that old Protestant work ethic thinking and distinguisgh between the deserving and undeserving poor, as if anyone deserves to starve or go cold in winter or..
Ta, Robyn. My one true love is a public school teacher. My best friend started teaching public school in 1967; he finally retired but still does some teaching at the local university. Kids. Need. Food.
Maslowe was not wrong.
I’m going to need to see their data on the widespread fraud and abuse in school breakfast and lunch programs.
Pfft! Facts don't care about your feelings. Oh wait, that doesn't mean what they think it does....
They probably would think I wanted the data so I could scold it for not being “woke.”
What if tax cuts were limited to the “truly needy”?
Correct. Means testing for tax cuts! If you make more than a gabillion dollars you need to pay your taxes, period ... no matter what dodges you can exploit. I would be in favour of a 2 column system to calculating tax.
In column 1 it says "You are responsible for X wealth accumulation for the year, therefore your tax rate is between A (high) and B (low). A is the starting point for what you owe and B is fixed at 85% of A".
Column 2 says "here are all the loopholes you may claim to lower your Tax owed from A to B".
And it doesn't matter how many deductions you claim in column 2, you cannot lower it below "B" in column 1.
Reduces a lot of incentive to hide income, or play games at the edges of the tax rate, and applies across the board.
Cruelty is the only thing the GOPers understand.
> Truly, if poor people were half as good at fraud as Republicans seem to think they are, they would all be running
for president on the Republican ticket by now.
FTFY