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.
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.
You drastically overestimate how effective and well-funded CPS is.
Perhaps it should be better funded. Protecting kids should be out first priority.