8 ms·

Good faith-ly asking here: What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Breakfast, l

Good faith-ly asking here: What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Breakfast, lunch, and a little pickup baggie to go home with. The kids who don't need it/don't want it can just opt out of the program, but the floor is everyone gets to eat. I'd gladly pay more taxes even though my children aren't at risk.

adabyron 4y ago
The little pickup baggie is a great idea schools should implement, especially children with long bus rides. Most kids are starving once they get home.
- ljf 4y ago
  Over the summer holidays my office had free lunch bags for kids - your kids could come to the office, or you could take the bags with you. Any bags that weren't taken by 6.30pm were given away through Olio, so were with people who wanted them outside the business ASAP - they were collected by a local Olio rep, and with people how wanted them sometimes by 7pm. Pretty cheap for our company to run - helped out parents who needed it, was fun for the kids that got to come in and then zero waste as it all went out to other local families if we didn't use it all.
nathan_compton 4y ago
Kids should be able to eat for free. I believe the arguments against it are more or less: 1) I don't want to pay more taxes 2) Won't this make their parents less desperate and thus more able to choose their working conditions? 3) Will this encourage poor people to have too many kids? 4) I just don't like the idea of anyone getting anything without working for it.
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- deleted 4y ago
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gambiting 4y ago
>>What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Just the good old-school conservative mindset - that it shouldn't be the government's responsibility to feed your child. You had a kid, you should make sure they are fed. Why burden the taxpayer with this? >> I'd gladly pay more taxes even though my children aren't at risk. A lot of conservatives would have a heart attack at just the thought of paying more taxes, even if it would benefit them or their kids. Edit: Since this is getting downvoted for some reason - I just want to categorically point out that I'm not supporting this viewpoint. Just explaining it.
- tomrod 4y ago
  I said this below in another comment, and I legitimately cannot imagine another story here: > People who complain about taxes going to feed children are social darwinists.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    The people who complain about taxes going to children aren't particularly embarrassed about that. Coming up with prejudicial synonyms for people's positions doesn't illuminate, it obscures.
    - tomrod 4y ago
      My concern is not for the sociopaths that advocate for social darwinism, which is clearly defined[0], but for people that may be persuaded to accept such notions due to gullibility or lack of time for introspection. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
humanrebar 4y ago
> What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Other programs could be a better use of resources and provide more support to parents. Like minimum income programs that make paying for lunch a non-issue. Hypothetically, parents might want their children to follow certain diets for legitimate reasons, so letting them provide meals provides more support in those situations.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  Giving money to parents doesn't necessarily fix the problem of hungry children (this is not a slight to minimum income policies generally; I think all adults should be guaranteed a minimum quality of life regardless of if they've "earned" it, but I understand this is a much larger lift politically and will not necessarily fix everything). I want to fix the problem to hungry children directly by feeding them regardless of the parents capacity to feed them from their own wealth.
  - humanrebar 4y ago
    Given sufficient family finances, you can't really fix that without fixing the problem of neglectful or abusive parents.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      That's why I'm asking why can't we provide meals in the schools themselves so at minimum regardless of what's happening at home, children can eat.
      - giantg2 4y ago
        That's just covering a symptom. Truly helping abused children means removing them from the environment of abuse.
        PuppyTailWags 4y ago
throwaway22032 4y ago
You can't opt out of free meals provided via taxation because you're paying for them regardless of whether or not you use them. If I'm going to give poor people money I'd much rather just give them money. There's a ton of literature on this producing better results.
- TSiege 4y ago
  Sometimes I think people have gone too hard into behavioral economics thinking. The issue at hand isn't what is the best way to allocate resources. The issue is that we legally force children to spend all day at school 5 days a week, but we do not provide them food. If the government is mandating that, they are responsible for the children's safety and well being. One of the most basic parts of well being is being fed. There's a ton of studies that show that providing free meals improves test scores and behavior. It should be an option by default. And who cares if you don't use something directly, you benefit indirectly by having happier well fed children in your community
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > There's a ton of literature on this producing better results. "Better results" here revolves entirely around what outcome you're trying to achieve. The better results you're referring to are that the easiest way to provide a better lifestyle for poor people is to give them money. I'd submit that the best way to feed children is to give them food.
  - throwaway22032 4y ago
    Right, my argument is that the best way to provide a better lifestyle for poor people is to give them money rather than food.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > You can't opt out of free meals provided via taxation because you're paying for them regardless of whether or not you use them. You're right; that's how taxation is used to provide public services. So ban all public services, and reduce taxation to zero. That's what the new UK government seems bent on, and over just a weekend they've crashed into a lampost and written-off the car.
erellsworth 4y ago
I personally don't think there are any good arguments against it, but here are a few I can easily imagine hearing on Fox News: - We don't want to use tax payer funds to give free lunch to children of rich people - These types of issues should be handled by charities (by which they typically mean churches) not the government - We already have food stamps, etc
wollsmoth 4y ago
Whatever the US does now is lower quality food meeting some basic nutrition standards. Often kids don't like it from what I hear. People probably are mad that that's what kids are getting despite it being pretty cost efficient. There's a general cynicism that putting more money in the program would result in better food. There's also a broader school funding issue, at least in the US. I think that just breaks down to people don't want to pay to educate other peoples kids. It's really short sighted and selfish.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "I think that just breaks down to people don't want to pay to educate other peoples kids." It might be that they don't agree with how the money is currently spent. I see a lot of waste in my area. There are also some odd or overly restrictive policies. One can agree with the goal of funding of education while disagreeing on whether the current money is promoting that goal or being wasted.
  - Spellman 4y ago
    Particular examples of "waste"?
    - giantg2 4y ago
      The main one is a local district tearing down a relatively new middle school (15-20 years old) to build a fancier one of approximately the same size. The new one has a massive two story glass face to it (expensive) and is overall not made out of robust materials. Who designed this? In my day, schools served as emergency shelters and where built to last. There was nothing wrong with the old building and the space is essentially the same size. There's an obsession (around here at least) that the schools need more money for fancier stuff, and that somehow this will produce better grades.
      - wollsmoth 4y ago
        Yeah I kind of agree on the building thing, unless they just needed bigger capacity.
giantg2 4y ago
I think the arguments might be the cost/taxes (including redundancy of SNAP/WIC etc) and the lack of freedom around diet. This includes options like kosher, vegan, allergies, etc, but also being forced to eat "healthy" (whatever the politicians decide that is). It seems to me the SNAP, WIC and food bank route is more compressive, provides better freedom, and can offer better quality.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I don't understand why the default meals being of arbitrarily minimum quality should mean that no default meals should be provided at all. I'm asking why can't meals be offered regardless of parental ability to provide. SNAP, WIC, food banks all depend on parents. I am asking why can't the schools provide regardless of parents. If the kids don't need it they can simply not take it.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "I'm asking why can't meals be offered regardless of parental ability to provide." And why should they? "SNAP, WIC, food banks all depend on parents. I am asking why can't the schools provide regardless of parents." If the parents are neglecting their kids, the proper fix is to remove them from the abusive environment, not treat just one of the symptoms of a free lunch. "If the kids don't need it they can simply not take it." What about the kids who don't need it and take it anyways, leading to waste, obesity, or other issues? Some parents may need to control what their child eats.
    - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      The parents might be doing the best they can. Programs need to be applied for. Paperwork can be lost or delayed. Food banks need knowledge. There are an infinite number of reasons parents are unable to feed their children that don't involve removal from household. But in the meantime while paperwork is being resolved and parents educated, the kid should have food if they're hungry at school. Kids who don't need it and take it anyways is a much smaller problem than kids who need food and are going hungry. That's just a problem in teaching a child how to have a healthy relationship with food, which is much easier to build when the child doesn't experience food insecurity.
tenebrisalietum 4y ago
> What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Why stop at meals? Why not have the government just raise your kids? Then X, then X2, then socialism.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  Some day I'd like to find out why people are so terrified of socialism.
  - humanrebar 4y ago
    Venezuela's economy comes to mind.
    - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
      I'm not sure why? The majority of the economy has been private, and its collapse is due to stupid responses after the oil crisis. If your country is led by a moronic dictator it doesn't matter what the economic model is.
      - humanrebar 4y ago
        Some systems have more checks and balances for moronic autocrats.
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  To clarify these are not my arguments, but just an example of an argument.
bombcar 4y ago
I would steel man the argument against that the "lunch program funding law" is almost always connected with various other funding that is perceived as worthless, $50 billion for school pork and administrators, $5 million for lunches type of thing.
SllX 4y ago
As a general rule parents are responsible for their own children that they have in all societies, by default. That’s part of the responsibility of having kids. Taking too much of that responsibility out of parents hands makes it less consequential for them to have children, and puts the public on the hook for individual choices. Inevitably that will lead to rising costs and I would put money down on someone somewhere coming up with really inane ideas like one-child policies or licensing down the line, either because of the rising costs or using them as a fig leaf to cover up their real political stance against population growth (because we’ve socialized one of the largest costs of having children and made it cheaper for would-be parents who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the responsibility to have more children). I’m still in the camp of holding parents responsible for their choices, and I’ve suffered the consequences of my mother’s choices. Not every child’s upbringing is going to be happy or occur under ideal circumstances but that’s part of life too. EDIT: I should also add, none of this is commentary on the UK’s political scene. I don’t have a stance on their domestic societal concerns which is what the original story was concerned with. Just addressing the parent’s question.
- celticninja 4y ago
  > Taking too much of that responsibility out of parents hands makes it less consequential for them to have children If you are a parent you would know this is BS. Sending them to school and feeding them at school is hardly a significant consequence. Its not like if free school meals come along everyone is going to start having more children. Also children are required by law to be in school. I am not opting out of my parental responsibilities by sending them there. Further, your whole point is that it may make it easier for people to have more kids so we should not do that, even if the cost is children (who had no say in their birth) having to be hungry and suffer through choices of their parents (who birthed them) and the government (who require them to be in school). Sounds to me like you want to punish the children for the mistakes of their parents.
  - SllX 4y ago
    Hi. Please note I didn’t address mandatory schooling or any of the issues downstream from that. The parent raised a point about defaulting to three-square meals a day for all children which was an extension or addition to existing school lunch programs. Please re-read what I said with that context in mind if you want to have a productive conversation. I’m also fine just leaving it at that. Children will always suffer the consequences of their parents including the choice to have them; and the choice to have children (or not), like pretty much all human actions is an economic one. Sometimes a poorly thought out economic choice, and sometimes not really thought through. Right now it is expensive to have children, and a large part of that expense is just food and shelter. Parents that can’t provide that tend to have their children taken away by the State, and the children have no say in that. Does that suck? Yes it does, I have been in my State’s foster care system, and I got out of it lightly when my mother figured out how to take some responsibility. This does not mean it is the public’s duty to insure against all the poor life choices people may make including having children they ultimately cannot afford. I’m basically okay with school lunch systems, because of the mandatory schooling requirement, but remember, what I addressed was an extension of that.
artificialLimbs 4y ago
I hope mine is not a political argument, but a rational argument instead. I'm not actually sure what would be the definition of a political argument. Nearly anything involving the government ends up being unreasonable and illogical. It's not free, someone has to pay for it. The method is taxes, backed up by government violence if you don't pay. The government never pays for anything, in fact. You do. And I do. So if 'government' pays for kids meals, OTHER PEOPLE who may have decided to not even have kids are now partly responsible for your decision to have kids. In what universe is this even remotely ethical OR rational? Good on you for deciding to 'help others', but not everyone wants to or necessarily can do that, and why should you be the arbiter of what is right wrt someone else's money? Forcefully taking someone's money through government taxation is theft through threat of violence. This kind of program would be incentivizing people who apparently already can't care for the children they have to have more children.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  > So if 'government' pays for kids meals, OTHER PEOPLE who may have decided to not even have kids are now partly responsible for your decision to have kids. In what universe is this even remotely ethical OR rational? My life will directly benefit by the wellbeing of the humans around me. Less children stealing for food means less criminals on my streets and in my neighbourhood. Kids who aren't hungry will act out less and can learn better. Well-educated next generation will pay for me when I'm retired. It's a simple investment in my opinion.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > In what universe is this even remotely ethical OR rational? I have to pay taxes for the maintenance of the road network. I don't own a car. I have to pay taxes to bail out corrupt bankers, to rescue the economy they crashed. I have no mortgage. I have to pay taxes to subsidize farmers. I am not a farmer. I have to pay taxes for expensive cancer treatments. I don't have cancer. You seem to be arguing that there should be no public provision of anything, that should be private companies, and taxes should be abolished. That's some kind of insane Ayn Rand-style philosophy. It's obvious to me that any kind of public expenditure paid for from taxes is going to annoy someone; and some of the expenditure is either going to benefit me, or will be expenditure that I approve of. You win some, you lose some.
golergka 4y ago
Taxation, and tax-based redistribution is wrong even when it's used for a good thing. The society has a moral obligation to feed it's poor, but government should have nothing to do with it.
alistairSH 4y ago
Conservatives literally believe feeding kids will spoil them.[1] 1 - https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/free-lunch-doesnt-spoil-schoolchildren.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/free-lunch-doesnt-sp...
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  This is a highly partisan and very underhanded article. It posits that "Conservatives" believe this, yet the article's source is: "According to one school-board member, children could “become spoiled.”". Literally one school-board member said this, and now a broad brush is being used to insinuate that this is a widely held conservative viewpoint. Then they decided to trot out an "expert" in order to debunk this one person's opinion.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    The school board declined funds (that were already allocated by the federal government) to feed their kids, and as far as I could tell, no other reason was given.
    - rocmcd 4y ago
      But still, a sample size of _one_.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      Additional information was that free lunch applications were falling and food was being wasted. They still had a means-based program for those in need. So they didn't think they needed the program. They have since restarted the program (because hey, why turn down free money).
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  Every conservative I've ever met has been a member of a church that falls over itself to provide food to needy families as often as possible.
clusterhacks 4y ago
I live and grew up in the mid-Atlantic US area. You would be surprised at the number of people who will express deep distrust and even disgust at government programs for poor people. I have heard, many times, about how these programs are "taken advantage of" by people who "made bad choices" and "why should we support people who won't support themselves." A very specific example - I had a close relative who was adamantly opposed to subsidized housing. This was despite working in the food service/hotel industry directly with people who earned too little at work to afford housing in the area without help. This relative could easily express the idea that her employer paid very little and ruthlessly limited work hours to avoid having to pay benefits (like, you know, health insurance) but not connect how her co-workers had to live in subsidized housing because they simply didn't earn enough (ever in their lives) to afford any other choice. I suspect some similar thinking around providing a better meal plan for kids. During the pandemic, my (relatively wealthy) school district did provide free breakfast and lunch for all students. However, that was based on COVID federal grants and has expired. Students can still apply for free and reduced price meals and even in our "wealthier" district around 17% of students qualify for those programs. This roughly tracks our state statistics which report around 20% of families with kids in schools have problems with food insecurity. We have a deeply conservative state legislature. The state itself has very large disparities in income and poverty based on area. I am honestly not particularly well-informed on free and reduced meal plan numbers in different areas. It is unclear to me if it is "politically viable" to provide additional subsidies or financial support to those poorer districts.
jandrewrogers 4y ago
The quality of the food is highly variable depending on locale. The reality is that some locales will be serving low-effort junk food for all three meals (all the California schools I went to were like this) and others will be served hand-cooked meals made by grannies (a couple rural schools in flyover country served free meals this way -- quality was excellent). I frankly don't trust the government to provide a healthy diet on a consistent basis, their track record is remarkably poor in this regard. I don't have an issue with the idea of free meals, many locales already have something like that, but the execution is quite another matter.
nineplay 4y ago
Pragmatic answer: It's really hard to figure out how much food is needed without creating huge amounts of waste. Our school district had free-for-all lunches and dinners for the last couple of years due to covid. Take as much as you want, no questions asked. It resulted in a huge waste of food. I was at one distribution spot daily and they'd be cheerfully pressing bags on me, "Take one! Take ten! It will all get thrown away otherwise" On taco day I'd grab a few because one kid liked them but that was it. Even with the ones I took, the apples got throw out and the chocolate milk got thrown out. This year it is only free lunch and the kids have a lunch code, so at least they know that they don't need more than the number of students at the school. I suspect there are still a lot of leftovers at the end of the day. Most of the kids I know still bring their own - the biggest beneficiaries are working parents who don't have the energy to pack lunch every day. There could be government agencies that hand out something like MREs I suppose. It wouldn't be very appealing and I'm sure there would be lots of complaints, but it might keep people from starving.
- ThrowawayR2 4y ago
  > "There could be government agencies that hand out something like MREs I suppose." Not advocating for or against what you're saying but a ration of the type you're suggesting does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration

adabyron 4y ago

The little pickup baggie is a great idea schools should implement, especially children with long bus rides. Most kids are starving once they get home.

ljf 4y ago
Over the summer holidays my office had free lunch bags for kids - your kids could come to the office, or you could take the bags with you. Any bags that weren't taken by 6.30pm were given away through Olio, so were with people who wanted them outside the business ASAP - they were collected by a local Olio rep, and with people how wanted them sometimes by 7pm. Pretty cheap for our company to run - helped out parents who needed it, was fun for the kids that got to come in and then zero waste as it all went out to other local families if we didn't use it all.

nathan_compton 4y ago

Kids should be able to eat for free. I believe the arguments against it are more or less: 1) I don't want to pay more taxes 2) Won't this make their parents less desperate and thus more able to choose their working conditions? 3) Will this encourage poor people to have too many kids? 4) I just don't like the idea of anyone getting anything without working for it.

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gambiting 4y ago

>>What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Just the good old-school conservative mindset - that it shouldn't be the government's responsibility to feed your child. You had a kid, you should make sure they are fed. Why burden the taxpayer with this? >> I'd gladly pay more taxes even though my children aren't at risk. A lot of conservatives would have a heart attack at just the thought of paying more taxes, even if it would benefit them or their kids. Edit: Since this is getting downvoted for some reason - I just want to categorically point out that I'm not supporting this viewpoint. Just explaining it.

tomrod 4y ago
I said this below in another comment, and I legitimately cannot imagine another story here: > People who complain about taxes going to feed children are social darwinists.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  The people who complain about taxes going to children aren't particularly embarrassed about that. Coming up with prejudicial synonyms for people's positions doesn't illuminate, it obscures.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    My concern is not for the sociopaths that advocate for social darwinism, which is clearly defined[0], but for people that may be persuaded to accept such notions due to gullibility or lack of time for introspection. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism

humanrebar 4y ago

> What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Other programs could be a better use of resources and provide more support to parents. Like minimum income programs that make paying for lunch a non-issue. Hypothetically, parents might want their children to follow certain diets for legitimate reasons, so letting them provide meals provides more support in those situations.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Giving money to parents doesn't necessarily fix the problem of hungry children (this is not a slight to minimum income policies generally; I think all adults should be guaranteed a minimum quality of life regardless of if they've "earned" it, but I understand this is a much larger lift politically and will not necessarily fix everything). I want to fix the problem to hungry children directly by feeding them regardless of the parents capacity to feed them from their own wealth.
- humanrebar 4y ago
  Given sufficient family finances, you can't really fix that without fixing the problem of neglectful or abusive parents.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    That's why I'm asking why can't we provide meals in the schools themselves so at minimum regardless of what's happening at home, children can eat.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      That's just covering a symptom. Truly helping abused children means removing them from the environment of abuse.
      - PuppyTailWags 4y ago

throwaway22032 4y ago

You can't opt out of free meals provided via taxation because you're paying for them regardless of whether or not you use them. If I'm going to give poor people money I'd much rather just give them money. There's a ton of literature on this producing better results.

TSiege 4y ago
Sometimes I think people have gone too hard into behavioral economics thinking. The issue at hand isn't what is the best way to allocate resources. The issue is that we legally force children to spend all day at school 5 days a week, but we do not provide them food. If the government is mandating that, they are responsible for the children's safety and well being. One of the most basic parts of well being is being fed. There's a ton of studies that show that providing free meals improves test scores and behavior. It should be an option by default. And who cares if you don't use something directly, you benefit indirectly by having happier well fed children in your community
pessimizer 4y ago
> There's a ton of literature on this producing better results. "Better results" here revolves entirely around what outcome you're trying to achieve. The better results you're referring to are that the easiest way to provide a better lifestyle for poor people is to give them money. I'd submit that the best way to feed children is to give them food.
- throwaway22032 4y ago
  Right, my argument is that the best way to provide a better lifestyle for poor people is to give them money rather than food.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> You can't opt out of free meals provided via taxation because you're paying for them regardless of whether or not you use them. You're right; that's how taxation is used to provide public services. So ban all public services, and reduce taxation to zero. That's what the new UK government seems bent on, and over just a weekend they've crashed into a lampost and written-off the car.

erellsworth 4y ago

I personally don't think there are any good arguments against it, but here are a few I can easily imagine hearing on Fox News: - We don't want to use tax payer funds to give free lunch to children of rich people - These types of issues should be handled by charities (by which they typically mean churches) not the government - We already have food stamps, etc

wollsmoth 4y ago

Whatever the US does now is lower quality food meeting some basic nutrition standards. Often kids don't like it from what I hear. People probably are mad that that's what kids are getting despite it being pretty cost efficient. There's a general cynicism that putting more money in the program would result in better food. There's also a broader school funding issue, at least in the US. I think that just breaks down to people don't want to pay to educate other peoples kids. It's really short sighted and selfish.

giantg2 4y ago
"I think that just breaks down to people don't want to pay to educate other peoples kids." It might be that they don't agree with how the money is currently spent. I see a lot of waste in my area. There are also some odd or overly restrictive policies. One can agree with the goal of funding of education while disagreeing on whether the current money is promoting that goal or being wasted.
- Spellman 4y ago
  Particular examples of "waste"?
  - giantg2 4y ago
    The main one is a local district tearing down a relatively new middle school (15-20 years old) to build a fancier one of approximately the same size. The new one has a massive two story glass face to it (expensive) and is overall not made out of robust materials. Who designed this? In my day, schools served as emergency shelters and where built to last. There was nothing wrong with the old building and the space is essentially the same size. There's an obsession (around here at least) that the schools need more money for fancier stuff, and that somehow this will produce better grades.
    - wollsmoth 4y ago
      Yeah I kind of agree on the building thing, unless they just needed bigger capacity.

giantg2 4y ago

I think the arguments might be the cost/taxes (including redundancy of SNAP/WIC etc) and the lack of freedom around diet. This includes options like kosher, vegan, allergies, etc, but also being forced to eat "healthy" (whatever the politicians decide that is). It seems to me the SNAP, WIC and food bank route is more compressive, provides better freedom, and can offer better quality.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I don't understand why the default meals being of arbitrarily minimum quality should mean that no default meals should be provided at all. I'm asking why can't meals be offered regardless of parental ability to provide. SNAP, WIC, food banks all depend on parents. I am asking why can't the schools provide regardless of parents. If the kids don't need it they can simply not take it.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "I'm asking why can't meals be offered regardless of parental ability to provide." And why should they? "SNAP, WIC, food banks all depend on parents. I am asking why can't the schools provide regardless of parents." If the parents are neglecting their kids, the proper fix is to remove them from the abusive environment, not treat just one of the symptoms of a free lunch. "If the kids don't need it they can simply not take it." What about the kids who don't need it and take it anyways, leading to waste, obesity, or other issues? Some parents may need to control what their child eats.
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    The parents might be doing the best they can. Programs need to be applied for. Paperwork can be lost or delayed. Food banks need knowledge. There are an infinite number of reasons parents are unable to feed their children that don't involve removal from household. But in the meantime while paperwork is being resolved and parents educated, the kid should have food if they're hungry at school. Kids who don't need it and take it anyways is a much smaller problem than kids who need food and are going hungry. That's just a problem in teaching a child how to have a healthy relationship with food, which is much easier to build when the child doesn't experience food insecurity.

tenebrisalietum 4y ago

> What, if any, are the political arguments against government-provided 3 square meals a day for kids provided by default? Why stop at meals? Why not have the government just raise your kids? Then X, then X2, then socialism.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Some day I'd like to find out why people are so terrified of socialism.
- humanrebar 4y ago
  Venezuela's economy comes to mind.
  - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
    I'm not sure why? The majority of the economy has been private, and its collapse is due to stupid responses after the oil crisis. If your country is led by a moronic dictator it doesn't matter what the economic model is.
    - humanrebar 4y ago
      Some systems have more checks and balances for moronic autocrats.
tenebrisalietum 4y ago
To clarify these are not my arguments, but just an example of an argument.

bombcar 4y ago

I would steel man the argument against that the "lunch program funding law" is almost always connected with various other funding that is perceived as worthless, $50 billion for school pork and administrators, $5 million for lunches type of thing.

SllX 4y ago

As a general rule parents are responsible for their own children that they have in all societies, by default. That’s part of the responsibility of having kids. Taking too much of that responsibility out of parents hands makes it less consequential for them to have children, and puts the public on the hook for individual choices. Inevitably that will lead to rising costs and I would put money down on someone somewhere coming up with really inane ideas like one-child policies or licensing down the line, either because of the rising costs or using them as a fig leaf to cover up their real political stance against population growth (because we’ve socialized one of the largest costs of having children and made it cheaper for would-be parents who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the responsibility to have more children). I’m still in the camp of holding parents responsible for their choices, and I’ve suffered the consequences of my mother’s choices. Not every child’s upbringing is going to be happy or occur under ideal circumstances but that’s part of life too. EDIT: I should also add, none of this is commentary on the UK’s political scene. I don’t have a stance on their domestic societal concerns which is what the original story was concerned with. Just addressing the parent’s question.

celticninja 4y ago
> Taking too much of that responsibility out of parents hands makes it less consequential for them to have children If you are a parent you would know this is BS. Sending them to school and feeding them at school is hardly a significant consequence. Its not like if free school meals come along everyone is going to start having more children. Also children are required by law to be in school. I am not opting out of my parental responsibilities by sending them there. Further, your whole point is that it may make it easier for people to have more kids so we should not do that, even if the cost is children (who had no say in their birth) having to be hungry and suffer through choices of their parents (who birthed them) and the government (who require them to be in school). Sounds to me like you want to punish the children for the mistakes of their parents.
- SllX 4y ago
  Hi. Please note I didn’t address mandatory schooling or any of the issues downstream from that. The parent raised a point about defaulting to three-square meals a day for all children which was an extension or addition to existing school lunch programs. Please re-read what I said with that context in mind if you want to have a productive conversation. I’m also fine just leaving it at that. Children will always suffer the consequences of their parents including the choice to have them; and the choice to have children (or not), like pretty much all human actions is an economic one. Sometimes a poorly thought out economic choice, and sometimes not really thought through. Right now it is expensive to have children, and a large part of that expense is just food and shelter. Parents that can’t provide that tend to have their children taken away by the State, and the children have no say in that. Does that suck? Yes it does, I have been in my State’s foster care system, and I got out of it lightly when my mother figured out how to take some responsibility. This does not mean it is the public’s duty to insure against all the poor life choices people may make including having children they ultimately cannot afford. I’m basically okay with school lunch systems, because of the mandatory schooling requirement, but remember, what I addressed was an extension of that.

artificialLimbs 4y ago

I hope mine is not a political argument, but a rational argument instead. I'm not actually sure what would be the definition of a political argument. Nearly anything involving the government ends up being unreasonable and illogical. It's not free, someone has to pay for it. The method is taxes, backed up by government violence if you don't pay. The government never pays for anything, in fact. You do. And I do. So if 'government' pays for kids meals, OTHER PEOPLE who may have decided to not even have kids are now partly responsible for your decision to have kids. In what universe is this even remotely ethical OR rational? Good on you for deciding to 'help others', but not everyone wants to or necessarily can do that, and why should you be the arbiter of what is right wrt someone else's money? Forcefully taking someone's money through government taxation is theft through threat of violence. This kind of program would be incentivizing people who apparently already can't care for the children they have to have more children.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
> So if 'government' pays for kids meals, OTHER PEOPLE who may have decided to not even have kids are now partly responsible for your decision to have kids. In what universe is this even remotely ethical OR rational? My life will directly benefit by the wellbeing of the humans around me. Less children stealing for food means less criminals on my streets and in my neighbourhood. Kids who aren't hungry will act out less and can learn better. Well-educated next generation will pay for me when I'm retired. It's a simple investment in my opinion.
- deleted 4y ago
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- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > In what universe is this even remotely ethical OR rational? I have to pay taxes for the maintenance of the road network. I don't own a car. I have to pay taxes to bail out corrupt bankers, to rescue the economy they crashed. I have no mortgage. I have to pay taxes to subsidize farmers. I am not a farmer. I have to pay taxes for expensive cancer treatments. I don't have cancer. You seem to be arguing that there should be no public provision of anything, that should be private companies, and taxes should be abolished. That's some kind of insane Ayn Rand-style philosophy. It's obvious to me that any kind of public expenditure paid for from taxes is going to annoy someone; and some of the expenditure is either going to benefit me, or will be expenditure that I approve of. You win some, you lose some.

golergka 4y ago

Taxation, and tax-based redistribution is wrong even when it's used for a good thing. The society has a moral obligation to feed it's poor, but government should have nothing to do with it.

alistairSH 4y ago

Conservatives literally believe feeding kids will spoil them.[1] 1 - https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/free-lunch-doesnt-spoil-schoolchildren.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/free-lunch-doesnt-sp...

BitwiseFool 4y ago
This is a highly partisan and very underhanded article. It posits that "Conservatives" believe this, yet the article's source is: "According to one school-board member, children could “become spoiled.”". Literally one school-board member said this, and now a broad brush is being used to insinuate that this is a widely held conservative viewpoint. Then they decided to trot out an "expert" in order to debunk this one person's opinion.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  The school board declined funds (that were already allocated by the federal government) to feed their kids, and as far as I could tell, no other reason was given.
  - rocmcd 4y ago
    But still, a sample size of _one_.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Additional information was that free lunch applications were falling and food was being wasted. They still had a means-based program for those in need. So they didn't think they needed the program. They have since restarted the program (because hey, why turn down free money).
commandlinefan 4y ago
Every conservative I've ever met has been a member of a church that falls over itself to provide food to needy families as often as possible.

clusterhacks 4y ago

I live and grew up in the mid-Atlantic US area. You would be surprised at the number of people who will express deep distrust and even disgust at government programs for poor people. I have heard, many times, about how these programs are "taken advantage of" by people who "made bad choices" and "why should we support people who won't support themselves." A very specific example - I had a close relative who was adamantly opposed to subsidized housing. This was despite working in the food service/hotel industry directly with people who earned too little at work to afford housing in the area without help. This relative could easily express the idea that her employer paid very little and ruthlessly limited work hours to avoid having to pay benefits (like, you know, health insurance) but not connect how her co-workers had to live in subsidized housing because they simply didn't earn enough (ever in their lives) to afford any other choice. I suspect some similar thinking around providing a better meal plan for kids. During the pandemic, my (relatively wealthy) school district did provide free breakfast and lunch for all students. However, that was based on COVID federal grants and has expired. Students can still apply for free and reduced price meals and even in our "wealthier" district around 17% of students qualify for those programs. This roughly tracks our state statistics which report around 20% of families with kids in schools have problems with food insecurity. We have a deeply conservative state legislature. The state itself has very large disparities in income and poverty based on area. I am honestly not particularly well-informed on free and reduced meal plan numbers in different areas. It is unclear to me if it is "politically viable" to provide additional subsidies or financial support to those poorer districts.

jandrewrogers 4y ago

The quality of the food is highly variable depending on locale. The reality is that some locales will be serving low-effort junk food for all three meals (all the California schools I went to were like this) and others will be served hand-cooked meals made by grannies (a couple rural schools in flyover country served free meals this way -- quality was excellent). I frankly don't trust the government to provide a healthy diet on a consistent basis, their track record is remarkably poor in this regard. I don't have an issue with the idea of free meals, many locales already have something like that, but the execution is quite another matter.

nineplay 4y ago

Pragmatic answer: It's really hard to figure out how much food is needed without creating huge amounts of waste. Our school district had free-for-all lunches and dinners for the last couple of years due to covid. Take as much as you want, no questions asked. It resulted in a huge waste of food. I was at one distribution spot daily and they'd be cheerfully pressing bags on me, "Take one! Take ten! It will all get thrown away otherwise" On taco day I'd grab a few because one kid liked them but that was it. Even with the ones I took, the apples got throw out and the chocolate milk got thrown out. This year it is only free lunch and the kids have a lunch code, so at least they know that they don't need more than the number of students at the school. I suspect there are still a lot of leftovers at the end of the day. Most of the kids I know still bring their own - the biggest beneficiaries are working parents who don't have the energy to pack lunch every day. There could be government agencies that hand out something like MREs I suppose. It wouldn't be very appealing and I'm sure there would be lots of complaints, but it might keep people from starving.

ThrowawayR2 4y ago
> "There could be government agencies that hand out something like MREs I suppose." Not advocating for or against what you're saying but a ration of the type you're suggesting does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_daily_ration