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Why are we paying for food stamps and food lunches. Why are we also providing breakfast and snack and in some places dinner. What the hell is the matter with folks taking care of their own kids?
I know, right? Poor kids are so undeserving, and it's all their fault when their parents are broke, and they go to school hungry, or they don't have many fresh vegetables or fruit at home. Better yet, lets just kick them out of school all together and put them to work. I bet we could attract lots of new industry to this country if we ditch our child labor laws and let the sniveling little brats work in factories for a dollar a day. I think we should get rid of public schools too--if you can't afford to educate your kids then the little monsters get what they deserve. More kids with zero education means I have to pay nearly nothing to have someone peel my grapes for lunch--I mean, do they really need to READ to do that?
There are lots of places in the world where that attitude fits right in, but America (or any civilized nation) isn't one of them. I think you'd be much happier living in parts of Asia, Africa or South America. Buh bye and safe travels. Don't bother sending me a post card.
Being a conservative has never equaled being a selfish, inhuman jerk. Not sure where some of you picked up your attitude, but it's not becoming.
I know, right? Poor kids are so undeserving, and it's all their fault when their parents are broke. Better yet, lets just kick them out of school all together and put them to work. I bet we could attract lots of new industry to this country if we ditch our child labor laws and let the sniveling little brats work in factories for a dollar a day. I think we should get rid of public schools too--if you can't afford to educate your kids then the little monsters get what they deserve. More kids with zero education means I have to pay nearly nothing to have someone peel my grapes for lunch--I mean, do they really need to READ to do that?
There are lots of places in the world where that attitude fits right in, but America (or any civilized nation) isn't one of them. I think you'd be much happier living in parts of Asia, Africa or South America. Buh bye and safe travels. Don't bother sending me a post card.
Being a conservative has never equaled being a selfish, inhuman jerk. Not sure where some of you picked up your attitude, but it's not becoming.
Really I think the government is doing a great thing giving kids free lunches. It is good to teach kids that there is such a thing as a free lunch. When they get out of school the government can give them food stamps, welfare, free health care, maybe a free car and a free home too. Why should kids be taught they (or their parents) need to provide for themselves? They can just keep voting for left wing democrats and have the goverment provide everything for them.
Because we are told that kids are not being fed at home and coming to school hungry and for some it's their only meals they get.
Now given that why aren't the parents being charged with neglect ?
Do you grocery shop much? A gallon of milk is way over $4 here, and the prices keep going up. There's a big difference between being neglectful, and not having the money to feed your kids fresh fruits, vegetables and milk. High fat, simple carb foods (loaded with HFCS) are cheap and filling short term. We have a nation of lower income kids who are fat and malnourished at the same time. If we're going to feed kids lunch at school anyway (some free to lower income kids, but most paid for by the parents) why not at least make it a healthy lunch? Poor kids get at least one decent meal, and I feel like what I'm paying for for my kids is worth it.
Really I think the government is doing a great thing giving kids free lunches. It is good to teach kids that there is such a thing as a free lunch. When they get out of school the government can give them food stamps, welfare, free health care, maybe a free car and a free home too. Why should kids be taught they (or their parents) need to provide for themselves? They can just keep voting for left wing democrats and have the goverment provide everything for them.
I know--terrible isn't it. I don't know what planet you're from, but the program was started in 1946. I'm in my 50s, and we had the school lunch program at my tiny rural school. It's been in place for 70 years, so I'm sure that every single person in the last 70 years who got a school lunch has wound up on welfare. What were we thinking?
I'm a republican--what are you people? When did being conservative turn into being irrational, nasty, mean spirited and just so...selfish? I'm all for cutting the budget, but not all government spending is bad, and feeding little kids so they can actually LEARN lets them get an education, pull themselves out of poverty and contribute. That's a good thing in my book. I'd rather pay for their school lunch now than their welfare check later. Get it?
The crazy part--some of you are screaming that there should be no school lunch program at the same time that you're saying that it's big government interference to set regs to make sure that the food paid for by tax dollars isn't crap. You want zero lunch, but if we're going to buy it anyway, it's ok for tax dollars to pay for junk food. You make zero sense.
Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
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What some of the conservatives here are saying, (at least me).. is that I think we can all agree that the food served to our children should be healthy. To that there is no question. And we don't want to see children coming to school hungry. But.. with that being said, I have to ask... "Why are these children hungry?" And why do we think that another "regulation" put in by the federal government is going to change that? Just throwing more money or putting another regulation in place isn't going to cure the problem. Find the root of the problem and then go to work solving it...
And before someone says... their hungry because their poor. Yes... they are... and that's where food stamps come in. If a family gets food stamps, children should not be hungry. Plain and simple. Once again, it sounds more like poor parenting. Maybe for a healthy lifestyle we should regulate food purchased with food stamps too?
What some of the conservatives here are saying, (at least me).. is that I think we can all agree that the food served to our children should be healthy. To that there is no question. And we don't want to see children coming to school hungry. But.. with that being said, I have to ask... "Why are these children hungry?" And why do we think that another "regulation" put in by the federal government is going to change that? Just throwing more money or putting another regulation in place isn't going to cure the problem. Find the root of the problem and then go to work solving it...
And before someone says... their hungry because their poor. Yes... they are... and that's where food stamps come in. If a family gets food stamps, children should not be hungry. Plain and simple. Once again, it sounds more like poor parenting. Maybe for a healthy lifestyle we should regulate food purchased with food stamps too?
Here's where we agree--the food should be healthy. Here's the disconnect as I see it. The "regulation" you're talking about simply makes sure that the lunches are healthy, or at least healthier than they are now--it sets basic standards. It will force food suppliers to improve the quality of their product for schools that can't afford staff that cook from scratch, they'll have to do it at a competitive price to stay in business, and it will improve the options for the rest of the districts that use a combination of the two. That's a good regulation as far as I'm concerned, and it deals with the problem through the market. Schools don't have many suppliers to choose from, and they've had to take what they could get.
As far as food stamps go, I think the issue goes two ways. First, in poor areas, there are fewer grocery stores, they are way more expensive than the ones we're used to, and fresh fruits and vegetables are out of the financial reach of families in those areas living on food stamps. They can buy food, but it's not healthy food. Kids from rural areas have a few more options with gardens etc. than urban kids, but food stamp dollars don't go as far as you think they do, and fresh fruits and veggies aren't available to those kids in the winter. Transportation costs make food prices in small rural grocery stores more expensive as well. Packing a varied lunch from home with fresh fruits and vegetables is beyond the reach of some families--they might be able to stick a peanut butter sandwich in a bag, but that isn't the type of nutrition that growing kids need. We've had the school lunch program for 70 years, including the free lunch program for poor kids. I don't know why this is suddenly a big issue NOW. If we can make what we've already been doing for an entire generation healthier, then I don't see the problem.
EDIT--I forgot to add this. Some kids really do deal with neglect, and with parents who just don't care. You're right--those parents need to be dealt with, but that's another issue entirely outside of the power of the school lunch program. In the meantime, those kids do go without food at all, except for what they get at school.
Do you grocery shop much? A gallon of milk is way over $4 here, and the prices keep going up. There's a big difference between being neglectful, and not having the money to feed your kids fresh fruits, vegetables and milk. High fat, simple carb foods (loaded with HFCS) are cheap and filling short term. We have a nation of lower income kids who are fat and malnourished at the same time.
You already said you live in an affluent neighborhood.
You can get milk around here for $1.99-$2.50.
You're giving your opinion on neglect vs not having money. You don't know which is true and for how many.
I used to think as you..the family just doesn't have enough money.
Then I got involved and saw for myself that for many and I mean MANY the priorities are screwed up.
Cellphones, name brand sneakers and jeans, manicures, tatoos, iPods, hair weaves. And I'm speaking about the KIDS, not the parents.
No pencils at home, no notebooks at home. No need because school will give them paper, pencils, notebooks, all their supplies and free lunches.
In the course of 4 months I went through 600 pencils and just stopped and sent them to their lockers or had them borrow from classmates.
And I tried to get back all my "loaners" and the end of each class.
Granted..there ARE truly poor students from poor families who 110% deserve a decent education and some healthy meals but you can't see the trees through the forest anymore and that makes me mad about the system. Most of these kids on free lunch in the inner cities don't deserve it and if their parents had the priorities straight would be able to bring lunch. But if it's given out for free, then why bother using their own money for food ? This is neglect, not lack of money. Family of 4 can get $700 month just in food stamps and there's food pantries as well. No reason not to be able to send lunch to school.
Now that's inner city. Rural is a whole different story and that's where I am now. There is only 1 middle school and all the kids in town go to it so you see the full spectrum of upper, middle and low income kids. The poor here are the working poor. The free lunches and school supplies are definitely a help to them. I don't see what I saw in the Austin schools.
What I see are government programs that work. And they make due with what little money they get for a rural school district.
These government programs are being taken advantage of by more than a handful of people, especially in the bigger cities. And nothing is being done to rectify that.
So I know where you're coming from as I thought the same way once myself until I got involved and started to see reality.
As I said before, IF we're going to fund school lunches and breakfast's, I have no problem with the USDA setting standards for the use of our money. IF we're going to spend it anyhow, let's be sure we're getting the most bang for our buck.
Having said that, IF we just give the money to schools as a block grant for feeding kids, I'd also have no trouble trusting the parents and the local school systems to have enough sense to feed their own kids. It would be far less bureaucratic and cheaper in the long run because we wouldn't have all these inspectors running around or staff at the admin building generating required reports. All the feds would need then is a relatively few inspectors to be sure the money is actually being spent on food and not being stolen.
First, the Federal government shouldn't be in the school cafeteria or in OUR POCKETS stealing money to pay for their intrusions into business they have no business involving themselves.
Secondly, the students pay for their lunch, not the government .. which is how it's always been. I didn't get a "free" lunch when I was in school .. I paid ... ya know ... lunch money!
You already said you live in an affluent neighborhood.
You can get milk around here for $1.99-$2.50.
You're giving your opinion on neglect vs not having money. You don't know which is true and for how many.
I used to think as you..the family just doesn't have enough money.
Then I got involved and saw for myself that for many and I mean MANY the priorities are screwed up.
Cellphones, name brand sneakers and jeans, manicures, tatoos, iPods, hair weaves. And I'm speaking about the KIDS, not the parents.
No pencils at home, no notebooks at home. No need because school will give them paper, pencils, notebooks, all their supplies and free lunches.
In the course of 4 months I went through 600 pencils and just stopped and sent them to their lockers or had them borrow from classmates.
And I tried to get back all my "loaners" and the end of each class.
Granted..there ARE truly poor students from poor families who 110% deserve a decent education and some healthy meals but you can't see the trees through the forest anymore and that makes me mad about the system. Most of these kids on free lunch in the inner cities don't deserve it and if their parents had the priorities straight would be able to bring lunch. But if it's given out for free, then why bother using their own money for food ? This is neglect, not lack of money. Family of 4 can get $700 month just in food stamps and there's food pantries as well. No reason not to be able to send lunch to school.
Now that's inner city. Rural is a whole different story and that's where I am now. There is only 1 middle school and all the kids in town go to it so you see the full spectrum of upper, middle and low income kids. The poor here are the working poor. The free lunches and school supplies are definitely a help to them. I don't see what I saw in the Austin schools.
What I see are government programs that work. And they make due with what little money they get for a rural school district.
These government programs are being taken advantage of by more than a handful of people, especially in the bigger cities. And nothing is being done to rectify that.
So I know where you're coming from as I thought the same way once myself until I got involved and started to see reality.
Our milk is much higher--not many dairies in the great plains and transportation costs are high, so we tend to pay way more for groceries in general. Except for our short growing season, everything except for meat has to be trucked in here. I live in the country outside of a small town, within commuting distance of a larger city. It's comfortable but not rich, mainly because so many professional families have moved out our way to raise their kids in a rural environment, and commute into the city for work. Our county has a minimum 20 acre requirement for acreages (to prevent over building), and it's been that way for decades, so we have the locals who've lived here forever on farms and in town, and lots of new families moving in who can afford to buy 20 acres and build a house.
Nebraska is a very depopulated state, with the exception of Lincoln and Omaha, so we pay high taxes to begin with because we have fewer people to carry the burden for basic services. We have extremely high property taxes in our district, but it's been because of support for school bond issues from the new families moving in. We're fortunate to have a top notch rural school--one of the top rated ones in the state--but we pay for it. The problem is that the high property taxes are a real burden for many of the working class families who grew up here--they scramble to pay them. In the poorer rural districts the property taxes are lower, but the schools are scrambling to survive.
The only urban poor we really deal with out here are in Lincoln and Omaha, and I think that's still a different culture than in other parts of the country. My family members are almost entirely teachers and ranchers/farmers or some combination of the two, and I have family teaching in urban poor schools. It's not nearly as bad here as you're describing, but again, that might be the difference between a rural northern state vs. the south. They do see parents who just don't care, and child neglect, but also lots of families just struggling to make it, and lots of single parent homes.
I think a huge factor in poverty is child support enforcement--many single moms are on their own because dad refuses to pay. the whole host of problems you're talking about go way beyond the school lunch program. I think the way the welfare system in this country was structured a generation ago--where families couldn't work, or be married, and still receive any kind of benefit, and where benefits were tied to the number of children--created an entire entitlement culture that we're trying to deal with now. We need to find a way to turn that around, but that's a conversation for another day.
The bottom line for me is that the kids shouldn't be punished because of the parents. Most kids don't even know they get free lunches--as far as they're concerned, the food is just there for everyone. When my kids were younger, they had no clue that I wrote a big check every month to cover theirs. Kids can't learn with empty stomachs, and they have a whole host of behavior and learning problems without adequate nutrition. It makes sense to me to make sure that school lunches are healthy, and that everyone who needs one, gets one.
I really do get where you're coming from--I just think the issues aren't the same in different parts of the country, and I don't know how to fix the problem. For me, feeding kids comes first, and then you fix the rest later, because you can't go back and undo kids being hungry or having lousy nutrition. The damage is done when the damage is done.
Last edited by mb1547; 01-28-2012 at 12:14 PM..
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