Republican budget proposal would do away with universal free school lunches

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Business Insider

Mar 24, 2024, 4:47 PM EDT


There's no such thing as a free lunch. That's the future that some Republicans appear to want at least. The Republican Study Committee, a congressional caucus that contains around three-fourths of Republicans in the House of Representatives, released its 2025 fiscal year budget report this week. The budget is unlikely to pass any time soon but offers a glimpse of Republican priorities should they win in November.

The budget aims to reform school lunch subsidies by eliminating the "community eligibility provision" from the federal School Lunch Program.

The community eligibility provision funds school lunches for all children enrolled in the school regardless of their individual needs. The proposed RSC Budget would eliminate that provision to ensure school lunch provisions go to only "truly needy households," the report says.

There are only nine states that provide free school lunch to all students regardless of their status, according to the NYC Food Policy Center at Hunter College. States with universal free lunch include California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Main, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Vermont. Similar bills have also been considered by lawmakers in more than 20 states and Washington, DC.

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republican-budget-universal-free-school-lunch-2024-3

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Link to House GOP FY'25 BUDGET PROPOSAL (PDF) - https://hern.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_budget_including_letter_web_version.pdf

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Huh. I had no idea there were universal free lunches.

There should be, but there are not.

I do live in NM which recently went to free lunches.

[IronLionZion]

17. The article says only 9 states have it

and lists the states

[pnwmom]

22. Only in communities with a high enough proportion of kids eligible for free -- so it wasn't

really universal in most states.

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. As much as I'd hate to lose him..

I'd love to see Gov. Pritzker run for president one day. The state is in such better shape than it was five years ago when JB took office. And after the mess of the Ryan-Blago years, plus the puke that JB beat, it's a relief.

[Jean Genie]

3. Charity? What charity?

Because portly old white man Republicans fear that feeding hungry (and even not necessarily hungry) children might take bread off their own tables. Oh the humanity!

[mpcamb]

21. Why print the article without telling the % of public school kids at or below the povert level?

Do the issue justice.
Do your homework!

[SunSeeker]

28. How about you do some homework?

First, what constitutes poverty changes from state to state and federally, and is invariably ridiculouly stingy. Having been a kid whose working poor family ran out of money and food the last week of every month, even though we got food stamps (food stamp allotments are unrealistically miserly), I can tell you that a LOT of working poor are still not classified as being below the poverty level, even though they're not able to put food on the table.

The fact is, just over 50 percent of children attending U.S. public schools come from low income families. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/shameful-milestone-majority-public-school-students-live-poverty#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20research%20bulletin,come%20from%20low%2Dincome%20families.

Why have universal school lunches?

First, it is a waste of administrative time and money to try to weed out the middle class/low income kids from the "poverty level" kids. That money is better spent just buying food for all the kids. It is a relatively small amount of money overall, and does so much good for the student body. It assures each kid is fed and alert and ready to learn, even if their parents are poor, or too harried to pack a lunch or whatever the problem is at home, the kid will eat and learn regardless. It is literally the best use of our tax dollars.

Second, even if a kid qualifies as "poverty level," why shame that kid? Having to show up with a lunch voucher while other kids paid in cash is ostracizing and humiliating, and many parents won't even apply because of the stigma.

Thank God I went to a California elementary school that gave every kid a free lunch. At school, we were all equal, and every kid got to eat with dignity, no matter what was going on at home. The sad part was I knew my mom had no lunch on some days while I did.

[CrispyQ]

4. Damn! They are some mean-spirited fucks!

A few years ago some state legislator wanted to make kids who couldn't pay for their lunch clean up the cafeteria afterwards.

[PatSeg]

6. Those doggone freeloader kids!

Always lookin' for a handout!

What is wrong with republicans? They hate everyone - children, old people, disabled people, sick people, homeless people, poor people, working class people................they are all a bunch of Mr. Potters, mean to the bone.

[liberalgunwilltravel]

5. I wish

I wish the was a budget that would do away with greedy, hateful, racist Republicans. Of course, that would be essentially all of them. Oh well.

[Trueblue1968]

16. NASA needs to get people to the moon NOW. Build huge warehouses and send the GOPs there

BIG Ass and luxurious to meet there every need. Then send ALL hoping politicians to the moon.

Trump can be emperor of the man moon. They all get a 1way trip !!!!!!!
Lololol.

Oh, and they get NO weapons.

[kimbutgar]

7. I wrote this comment on a recent comment about starving children in the world

I was subbing at a school years ago and had lunch duty. This one boy sat in the cafeteria watching kids throwing away their unfinished lunches. He was fishing in the garbage for uneaten food. He had a backpack that he was putting food in. Finally I said he should go out and play because recess would be over soon. He said he needed one more meal so that he and his siblings could eat real food and not have cereal for dinner. I almost lost it crying and had enough money on me to buy that one more meal so he could play outside. He was so grateful . I’ve always wondered about that child. This was in SF in a middle class area. After the pandemic the city started giving out feed lunches to every student who requested one. I think about those cruel red states that wouldn’t take funding for free school lunches and thinking how unchristian they are!

[NanaCat]

29. I'm unchristian

And I would have given that kid a meal. I have done that.

I know it shocks people to learn this reality, but we unchristians are just as likely to be moral and generous as anyone else. It'd be a refreshing change if more people considered that before speaking.

[OMGWTF]

39. I'm a better Christian than my End-Timer Talibangelical mother and I'm not even a believer.

[mahina]

8. Monsters

Aaargh

[BlueKota]

9. They are such sickening hypocrites

They say they are pro-life. That they want more children to be born, even it's to people who don't have the resources to support those children. Yet they are not willing to spend one dime of their own money or their rich donors money to help feed, home, and cloth those children. They force these kids into a life of poverty and suffering. This is why I loathe these fuckers with all my heart.

[sakabatou]

11. As George Carlin once said...

“Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.”

[sakabatou]

10. GOP: Cruelty is a feature of our party

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

12. Idiots

Don't they know the reason the Feds started the school lunch program was that during WWII many draftees were malnourished. It's a national security issue.

These are the same dumbfucks who kiss the asses of people like Putin and Orban.

[Diamond_Dog]

13. They probably also

want to make sure the kids who get the free lunches are humiliated in some way for it. That way they’ll grow up striving to make a lot of money. Character building!

[Grins]

14. From the pdf...

Page 4.

“Ensuring Liberty Through Deregulation”

At a time when Boeing is crashing because there were no government inspectors.

I’ll have to read it to see how deregulation “ensures liberty.”

[Camaromjr]

15. Only Meal of the Day

I worked at NOPS (New Orleans Public Schools) for a bit. The Free and Reduced Lunches program was, in way too many cases, the only hot meal these kids received in a day. Additionally, E-Rate funding was based on the percentage of this program. If your school had a 70% qualification demographic, then E-Rate would pay for up to 90% for Internet access. To be more plain, based on free or reduced lunches, school districts could build out sophisticated broad-band Internet access infrastructure.

This is a 2 for, for the Republicans. They get to starve poor and disadvantaged students and deprive them of advanced learning opportunities. A win / win for cruelty.

[truthisfreedom]

18. A hungry kid is a distracted kid,

And kids who don’t learn grow up to be repukes like their mommies and daddies. And that’s the name of this tune.

[IbogaProject]

19. I think NYC does too

But we are a city.

[Warpy]

20. Call it REUBLICAN POST BIRTH ABORTION

and chase after them, demanding to know why they hate children so much.

(Yeah, we know why, it's because once they're off the tit, they've outlivd their usefulness)

But we need to do some THEATER. That's what stupid people respond to, theater. Time the GOP got some of their own bitter tasting medicine, they've deserved it long enough.

[limbicnuminousity]

23. Those layabouts can work if they want to eat.

Fortunately Republicans have also repealed and/or modified child labor laws to allow just that. Little Timmy doesn't need long division to work in an abattoir.

[SunSeeker]

24. My free school lunch at my Los Angeles elementary was often the only meal I got that day.

Fuck Republicans to Hell.

[sheshe2]

27. 💙

[cstanleytech]

25. I remember that bullshit growing up and all it accomplished was to humiliate any the kids who needed the help.

[swong19104]

26. Not only should there be universal free lunch at (public) schools

but it should be offered to ALL students whether their family can afford to provide their own lunch or not. AND, the quality of the food should be better than any top-level restaurant. That means, no more tater tots and salisbury steaks. Or some microwaved highly-processed crap from some food industry mega-corp.

Ideally, the ingredients for the food should be sourced somewhat locally, if possible.

[ashredux]

30. Good Lord, just feed the damn kids. Every kid. This is just insanity. And, Hungry kids can't learn a damn thing.

Of all the programs to cut they pick school lunches. I’ve been around a few decades, and I tell you, what we see today is worse than anything I’ve seen in many, many years.

[appleannie1]

31. Make poor women have a lot of kids so they can have fun watching them starve.

They sure can find ways to make people miserable. And kids can't fight back so they make easy targets.

[Zilli]

32. Anything maga's can do to support childhood hunger they will be on board.

Hungry children, as punishment to society! This is the petty party withholding food from children who do not have a job and cannot buy their own lunch....

[hunter]

33. My children and a few of their cousins grew up with free lunches.

They were excellent students in high school, got accepted to great universities, and now in their thirties have well paying jobs. Some of them own nicer homes than we, their parents, do.

If not for those free lunches they might have been billionaires.

When we first moved here it felt awkward to me that there was no way to pay for school lunches. Everyone 17 and under can get a free breakfast and lunch, even during summer break.

I got over my discomfort.

We live in a California agricultural community.

[Hotler]

34. Does corporate America still get to write off their so called "business lunch and or dinners"?

For every cut the little people have to take the upper crust has to take a cut also.
Conservatism is selfishness.

[dingosatemyusername]

37. "Conservatism is selfishness" you hit the nail on the head

[ificandream]

35. Another good campaign point for Biden. RepUghs love to be cruel.

[republianmushroom]

36. More of republicans compassionate values.

You're out of the womb, now. You are own your own, kid.

[OMGWTF]

38. If kids are required by law to be in a building all day, it's your responsibility to feed them. Period.

[Hikerchick57]

40. Just vile!