On Wednesday, the Republican Study Committee, of which some three-quarters of House Republicans are members, released its 2025 budget entitled “Fiscal Sanity to Save America.” Tucked away in the 180-page austerity manifesto is a block of text concerned with a crucial priority for the party: ensuring children aren’t being fed at school.
Eight states offer all students, regardless of household income, free school meals — and more states are trending in the direction. But while people across the country move to feed school children, congressional Republicans are looking to stop the cause.
Republicans however view the universal version of the policy as fundamentally wasteful. The “school lunch and breakfast programs are subject to widespread fraud and abuse,” reads the RSC’s proposed yearly budget, quoting a report from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. The Cato report blames people who may “improperly” redeem free lunches, even if they are technically above the income cutoff levels. The “fraudulence” the think tank is concerned about is not some shadowy cabals of teachers systematically stealing from the school lunch money pot: It’s students who are being fed, even if their parents technically make too much to benefit from the program. In other words, Republicans’ opposition to the program is based on the assumption that people being “wrongly” fed at school is tantamount to abusive waste.
Not to be confused as completely frugal, the Republicans call to finish construction of border wall projects proposed by former President Donald Trump. And not to be confused as focused, the budget includes the word “woke” 37 times.
As a libertarian, the Cato Institute has a lot of nonsense, and this is one of them.
Here's my take: if we require students to be in school during certain hours, the school should be obligated to provide everything they need, from supplies to meals. It's the same idea as with prisons, if we, as a society, decide that certain individuals need to be locked up, they should have their needs provided for. Same thing if we detain someone at custom for hours or whatever.
On the flipside, there should be a way to opt-out for parents who don't want the school-provided lunches. There are plenty of parents who think school lunches are unhealthy, so perhaps there's an argument that they should get some kind of cash card to help pay for home-provided meals that's equivalent to the cost to make the school lunch (like $2-3/lunch). That sounds kind of complicated, so I obviously wouldn't lead with that, but maybe it'll resolve some people's concerns.
If we want to save money (and I think we should), we should shut down a few of our foreign military bases and end federal student loan programs. Those are a lot more expensive than school lunches...
Fun fact, some places do force inmates to pay for their own incarceration and will hand you a bill when you leave https://www.npr.org/2022/03/04/1084452251/the-vast-majority-of-states-allow-people-to-be-charged-for-time-behind-bars
That's disgusting. If society decides someone is too dangerous to live in society, they must pay for that person to be separated from society. This is a natural check on BS laws that would otherwise be used to justify slavery.
So I consider that practice to be a violation of the eighth and the thirteenth amendments. I also think the exemption from forced labor as punishment for a crime is immoral, and argue the convicted should always be given an alternative to labor (e.g. community service as an alternative to a fine or incarceration). If not, there's a perverse incentive for jails to keep prisoners past their original sentence with additional charges heaped on top.
My state fortunately bans forced labor, and generally has decent policies around pay-to-stay. From my search, only those with a paycheck at the time of incarceration pay in some areas, and in another area, income earned in prison may be withheld to pay restitution for their victims. But AFAIK, nowhere in my state unconditionally charges fees. So I think we're doing better, but I'll look and see if the are movements to eliminate the fees we have.
Wow that's fucking cringe.
Slave state
I see a big problem with the opt-out being abusive parents could pocket the money without feeding the child.
Money isn't the only barrier to food security.
Sure, and perhaps parents opting out would put a big target on their back for CPS and similar services.
That seems way more complicated, error-prone, and expensive than just letting the kids have lunch without paying.
I'm suggesting exactly that. Kids should have lunch without paying.
If there's pushback, I'd suggest an opt-out program where parents get the value of the lunch to help pay for an alternative. If they fail to provide an adequate lunch consistently, they get charged with abuse.
But the default would be kids getting lunch without having to pay anything.
Running the opt out program would be much more complicated and expensive than just not doing that. It's a lot of work for barely any gain.
Yup, probably. But sometimes extra costs are needed for a program to be equitable.
If the lunches really suck, more people will opt out and they'll need to fix the lunches. If the lunches are good, few people will opt out. If someone has dietary needs the lunch system doesn't meet, they shouldn't be required to pay for lunches they won't use.
I doubt a significant number of people will opt out, especially if the lunch system provides a decent variety to account for peoples' various dietary needs. However, I think it's a valid concern, and parents should be empowered to opt out without taking on much extra cost.
This is looking at it wrong. Everyone in the society pays for lunches. Even people without kids. "I don't want to spend my money on other people" is anti social and counter productive.
Really there's no such thing as 'my' money. Anyone only has anything because the rest of us let it be.
Though thinking about the bulk of what you're saying, the system would need to account for like "I have a restrictive diet". I don't think an opt out program would be a great solution though. Don't want a lot of bureaucracy around that. Don't want to let people opt out and pocket the money. Probably a mechanism where parents and students can report preferences and needs, and the menu is adjusted accordingly.
The opt out system doesn't need to be complicated and would be way simpler than the current free lunch system. Here's how it could work:
That's not a lot of bureaucracy, so it really shouldn't add a lot of cost. This is probably enough to get opponents on-board.
I concede it might be possible to make the opt out system comparably simple as you describe, though I still think a system without exceptions is simpler than one with. Unfortunately, I don't think either of us are in a position to work on a project like this.
Thanks for staying polite. Good chat.
Same to you.
And yeah, my state is probably going to fall in line here because they're ridiculous. We just reduced our tax rate by 0.1%, which impacted almost nobody, but probably would've been enough to pay for lunches for every kid in the state (with my back if the napkin math), and probably a bit more.
Maybe I'll run for office. IDK.
You drastically overestimate how effective and well-funded CPS is.
Perhaps it should be better funded. Protecting kids should be out first priority.
IMO guaranteed child welfare (including universal lunch) is 100% consistent with any major political idealogy that is internally consistent.
Libertarianism? The whole basis is the personal choice, autonomy, and the ethics of consent. Children fundamentally cannot consent. They still, however, individual agents. They simply are in a state where social order defines their outcome. As society, we must then take this to maximize their outcomes and ultimately their personal liberty - when they reach an age where they can operate with it.
Therefore, we have to choose between depriving others of a relatively small resource, or depriving children of a major resource: the nature of their ability to participate with full autonomy and personal liberty.
The choice, in my opinion, is very clear.
Exactly.
I'm a fan of libertarian paternalism, which is all about society choosing good defaults because it's clear individuals often make poor choices (especially when uninformed). Individuals who can consent or who have the legal responsibility over someone else should be able to choose something different. However, you should also be legally liable for any changes to defaults you make on behalf of someone else (e.g. choosing to forego school lunches for your child and not providing a nutritious meal is theft and abuse).
This is an issue of rights. Until kids can consent, they have a right to proper nutrition and whatnot because they didn't consent to being brought into the world.
So yeah, the choices are between everyone suffering a minor inconvenience (slightly higher taxes) to guarantee the rights of children, or children suffer. It's absolutely clear, the minor inconvenience wins.