4 ms·

I love living in Minnesota. Walz passed the Free Meals for School Kids Program[^1] at my elementary school, no less! about two years ago. I’m happy that other

by mproud 1y ago

I love living in Minnesota. Walz passed the Free Meals for School Kids Program[^1] at my elementary school, no less! about two years ago. I’m happy that other states are finally realizing, gee, this is such a straightforward issue we could actually solve. [^1] https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/FNS/SNP/free/ https://education.mn.gov/MDE/dse/FNS/SNP/free/

rufus_foreman 1y ago
>> gee, this is such a straightforward issue we could actually solve Shifting the cost from the parents who had the kids onto the taxpayers is not solving the problem. It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. That's not solving the problem. It's making sure there will be more problems.
- gecko6 1y ago
  I don't have kids, and will never have kids, but even so I don't see people whose children are being denied food as a problem that the children's parent's caused. I see hungry kids who can't learn because they're distracted by hunger as the problem, and I will gladly pay taxes to see that they don't go hungry.
- bnj 1y ago
  It’s hard to tell from your comment whether you mean the lunch debt is the problem, or the kids are the problem.
- AngryData 1y ago
  Without kids living and being born and learning and becoming productive members of society your lifestyle would not exist and current economic models would collapse in a handful of years. You are shooting everyone including yourself in the foot because you personally don't need to walk places.
  - giantg2 1y ago
    "and current economic models would collapse in a handful of years." It's possible that's not a bad thing considering they're built on excessive consumption and an ever expanding population.
    - AngryData 1y ago
      I would agree that current models are crap, but what kind of alternative would actually be viable with dumber, less healthy, and a shrinking population? We could do with one of them, maybe two if we are just scraping by for time, but all three? That is a one way ticket to a collapse that wouldn't be overcome for many generations.
  - timewizard 1y ago
    > and becoming productive members of society Child labor was legal until 1930. It has been a part of society for longer than it hasn't. I think your calculus is a little off. > your lifestyle would not exist Because /some/ children struggle to eat enough? Which, again, has been a norm in our society for longer than it hasn't. We didn't fully get rid of horses as beasts of burden in agriculture until the 1950s. > you personally don't need to walk places. Carrying everyone who can't walk is not a universal good. Particularly when some of those people can't walk because of a tiny, temporary, and highly solvable problem. Now you have people who make it their career to carry people. Their motivations are to carry as many people as is possible. If we actually made it so no one had to be carried they would be out a job. We live in a world of odd incentives. There is no point at which abandoning the middle way will benefit you, regardless of how pretty those ideas sound.
    - Dylan16807 1y ago
      > Child labor Are you serious. > Because /some/ children struggle to eat enough? They said "without kids", not without this particular program. > Carrying everyone who can't walk is not a universal good. Particularly when some of those people can't walk because of a tiny, temporary, and highly solvable problem. > Now you have people who make it their career to carry people. Their motivations are to carry as many people as is possible. If we actually made it so no one had to be carried they would be out a job. These are children. Someone is carrying them no matter what.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- bobsomers 1y ago
  For fucks sake, this is a heartless take. Having not-starving kids is beneficial to literally everyone in the community, not just the kids who use the program.
- inetknght 1y ago
  > Shifting the cost from the parents who had the kids onto the taxpayers is not solving the problem. No, but it's well documented that students who eat lunches generally perform better. > It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. Sorry buddy, but you won't find a lot of sympathy from people who actually care. School lunches *are not expensive*, and there are plenty of parents who are in poverty and literally cannot afford to pay for their child's lunch. Should the child starve? No. I strongly believe that anyone who thinks a child should starve, for whatever reason, does not belong in civilized society. > That's not solving the problem. You're right, it's not. But you also don't offer a different suggestion. How will you solve poverty? How will you solve neglect? Until you offer suggestions for that, your comment strikes me as coming from someone who (at best) is sociopathic in a bad way and (possibly) someone who does not belong in civilization. > It's making sure there will be more problems. Perhaps. But you could also consider it as several different types of investments in the future. An investment, at the mere cost of one child's meal per day, is an investment whose return is in the form of that child's future taxes; the lack of investment is instead the death-by-starvation of that child and loss of that child's future income and/or business taxes. An investment, at the mere cost of one child's meal per day, is an investment in that child's care for their fellow person. Children who have been there (in poverty and starving); who have literally had only one meal per day, are more likely to be more empathetic to the plights of the people (not just children) around them in similar situations. You should hope that, if you're in such a situation, that you could find someone who would be willing to help you. An investment, at the mere cost of one child's meal per day, does solve problems. Most parents are happy to be able to afford that investment themselves, but some parents -- through pride or neglect or other reasons -- are unable to afford that much. Why do you think you shouldn't help them?
- bdangubic 1y ago
  [flagged]
- jccalhoun 1y ago
  One of the best ways to reduce crime and drug addiction is education. Hungry kids don't learn well. Feeding kids so they can concentrate on learning prevents problems not creates them.
- gs17 1y ago
  > It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. Hate to turn into Helen Lovejoy here, but won't you please think of the children? The victims of the problem are the children. You're trying to punish the parents, and the kids get caught in the crossfire.
- delfinom 1y ago
  I will blow your fucking mind. The entire economic future of you and all the taxpayers depends on those kids growing up. Our entire economic structure is a ponzi scheme at global scale. It depends on kids growing up and cashing into the stock market so people can cash out of their 401ks. So why not ensure those little gremlins and nice and plump when they grow up so we can retire more easily.
  - rufus_foreman 1y ago
    That's your argument? I have to finance other people's kids because otherwise the ponzi scheme collapses? Let it fall. No more ponzi schemes.
    - rsingel 1y ago
      [flagged]
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- fritzo 1y ago
  Honest question: are you a Malthusian? If so, what do you think is the ideal birth rate?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  If you care so much, make some suggestions for solutions?
- sumeno 1y ago
  You know who else didn't cause the problem? The kids that you want to starve
- chmod775 1y ago
  Compared to the rest of the school system, the price of a kid's lunch is a small amount of money, and it's certainly not worth the overhead of bookkeeping, administration, payment processing, and checking eligibility for each individual kid. Take Finland as an example. Schools are paid for by taxpayers, costing around 8,000 euros per student per year [1] (the numbers don't change much regardless of which level of education you look at). Of that just 570 euro pay for balanced and healthy meals (mostly labor costs).[2] That works out to roughly 3 euro per meal. The benefit of a good meal probably outweigh many other things you could do with that money when it comes to educating children that are your future taxpayers. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134054/finland-regular-education-expenses-by-type-of-education/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134054/finland-regular-... [2] https://www.schoolmealscoalition.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/Kuusipalo_Manninen_2023_Food_Meals_Case_Study_Finland.pdf https://www.schoolmealscoalition.org/sites/default/files/202...

by mproud 1y ago

rufus_foreman 1y ago

>> gee, this is such a straightforward issue we could actually solve Shifting the cost from the parents who had the kids onto the taxpayers is not solving the problem. It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. That's not solving the problem. It's making sure there will be more problems.

gecko6 1y ago
I don't have kids, and will never have kids, but even so I don't see people whose children are being denied food as a problem that the children's parent's caused. I see hungry kids who can't learn because they're distracted by hunger as the problem, and I will gladly pay taxes to see that they don't go hungry.
bnj 1y ago
It’s hard to tell from your comment whether you mean the lunch debt is the problem, or the kids are the problem.
AngryData 1y ago
Without kids living and being born and learning and becoming productive members of society your lifestyle would not exist and current economic models would collapse in a handful of years. You are shooting everyone including yourself in the foot because you personally don't need to walk places.
- giantg2 1y ago
  "and current economic models would collapse in a handful of years." It's possible that's not a bad thing considering they're built on excessive consumption and an ever expanding population.
  - AngryData 1y ago
    I would agree that current models are crap, but what kind of alternative would actually be viable with dumber, less healthy, and a shrinking population? We could do with one of them, maybe two if we are just scraping by for time, but all three? That is a one way ticket to a collapse that wouldn't be overcome for many generations.
- timewizard 1y ago
  > and becoming productive members of society Child labor was legal until 1930. It has been a part of society for longer than it hasn't. I think your calculus is a little off. > your lifestyle would not exist Because /some/ children struggle to eat enough? Which, again, has been a norm in our society for longer than it hasn't. We didn't fully get rid of horses as beasts of burden in agriculture until the 1950s. > you personally don't need to walk places. Carrying everyone who can't walk is not a universal good. Particularly when some of those people can't walk because of a tiny, temporary, and highly solvable problem. Now you have people who make it their career to carry people. Their motivations are to carry as many people as is possible. If we actually made it so no one had to be carried they would be out a job. We live in a world of odd incentives. There is no point at which abandoning the middle way will benefit you, regardless of how pretty those ideas sound.
  - Dylan16807 1y ago
    > Child labor Are you serious. > Because /some/ children struggle to eat enough? They said "without kids", not without this particular program. > Carrying everyone who can't walk is not a universal good. Particularly when some of those people can't walk because of a tiny, temporary, and highly solvable problem. > Now you have people who make it their career to carry people. Their motivations are to carry as many people as is possible. If we actually made it so no one had to be carried they would be out a job. These are children. Someone is carrying them no matter what.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bobsomers 1y ago
For fucks sake, this is a heartless take. Having not-starving kids is beneficial to literally everyone in the community, not just the kids who use the program.
inetknght 1y ago
> Shifting the cost from the parents who had the kids onto the taxpayers is not solving the problem. No, but it's well documented that students who eat lunches generally perform better. > It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. Sorry buddy, but you won't find a lot of sympathy from people who actually care. School lunches *are not expensive*, and there are plenty of parents who are in poverty and literally cannot afford to pay for their child's lunch. Should the child starve? No. I strongly believe that anyone who thinks a child should starve, for whatever reason, does not belong in civilized society. > That's not solving the problem. You're right, it's not. But you also don't offer a different suggestion. How will you solve poverty? How will you solve neglect? Until you offer suggestions for that, your comment strikes me as coming from someone who (at best) is sociopathic in a bad way and (possibly) someone who does not belong in civilization. > It's making sure there will be more problems. Perhaps. But you could also consider it as several different types of investments in the future. An investment, at the mere cost of one child's meal per day, is an investment whose return is in the form of that child's future taxes; the lack of investment is instead the death-by-starvation of that child and loss of that child's future income and/or business taxes. An investment, at the mere cost of one child's meal per day, is an investment in that child's care for their fellow person. Children who have been there (in poverty and starving); who have literally had only one meal per day, are more likely to be more empathetic to the plights of the people (not just children) around them in similar situations. You should hope that, if you're in such a situation, that you could find someone who would be willing to help you. An investment, at the mere cost of one child's meal per day, does solve problems. Most parents are happy to be able to afford that investment themselves, but some parents -- through pride or neglect or other reasons -- are unable to afford that much. Why do you think you shouldn't help them?
bdangubic 1y ago
[flagged]
jccalhoun 1y ago
One of the best ways to reduce crime and drug addiction is education. Hungry kids don't learn well. Feeding kids so they can concentrate on learning prevents problems not creates them.
gs17 1y ago
> It's making people who didn't cause the problem subsidize the people who did cause the problem. Hate to turn into Helen Lovejoy here, but won't you please think of the children? The victims of the problem are the children. You're trying to punish the parents, and the kids get caught in the crossfire.
delfinom 1y ago
I will blow your fucking mind. The entire economic future of you and all the taxpayers depends on those kids growing up. Our entire economic structure is a ponzi scheme at global scale. It depends on kids growing up and cashing into the stock market so people can cash out of their 401ks. So why not ensure those little gremlins and nice and plump when they grow up so we can retire more easily.
- rufus_foreman 1y ago
  That's your argument? I have to finance other people's kids because otherwise the ponzi scheme collapses? Let it fall. No more ponzi schemes.
  - rsingel 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
fritzo 1y ago
Honest question: are you a Malthusian? If so, what do you think is the ideal birth rate?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
If you care so much, make some suggestions for solutions?
sumeno 1y ago
You know who else didn't cause the problem? The kids that you want to starve
chmod775 1y ago
Compared to the rest of the school system, the price of a kid's lunch is a small amount of money, and it's certainly not worth the overhead of bookkeeping, administration, payment processing, and checking eligibility for each individual kid. Take Finland as an example. Schools are paid for by taxpayers, costing around 8,000 euros per student per year [1] (the numbers don't change much regardless of which level of education you look at). Of that just 570 euro pay for balanced and healthy meals (mostly labor costs).[2] That works out to roughly 3 euro per meal. The benefit of a good meal probably outweigh many other things you could do with that money when it comes to educating children that are your future taxpayers. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134054/finland-regular-education-expenses-by-type-of-education/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134054/finland-regular-... [2] https://www.schoolmealscoalition.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/Kuusipalo_Manninen_2023_Food_Meals_Case_Study_Finland.pdf https://www.schoolmealscoalition.org/sites/default/files/202...