They pay $34 for burgers.
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@mekkaokereke one of the core lessons of public health is that bureaucracy is _expensive_. The entire “Who should pay what!?” Exercise slows the systems down and costs a ton of money and basically all it produces is spreadsheets that cruel selfish people use to be cruel and selfish, and that crowd can’t wrap their heads around the fact that the other thing that’s great about public services being public services is that it’s cheaper.
all sorts of services. education, food programs, health, public transportation, postal services.
they are public goods. they don't need to "make a profit". any decently run program won't have enough fraud to make it worth charging money and tracking the use. what they will save in costs and result in overall improvement in quality of life for all will more than make them worth it.
problem is, as soon as you say anything like that (or universal health care, UBI, etc.) there are screams of "that's communism" (no it isn't) or "socialism" (not exactly). capitalism (which we don't really have either) is a sacred cow. no one dares to criticize capitalism.
sigh...
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@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.
We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.
@realtegan @mekkaokereke this was how it was at all my schools elementary through high school; it sure helps with shame around needing help too. kids should never be made to feel bad about not having money.
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@realtegan @mekkaokereke this was how it was at all my schools elementary through high school; it sure helps with shame around needing help too. kids should never be made to feel bad about not having money.
@bipolaron @mekkaokereke
I grew up in the 1970s, and if you were poor you brought a sack lunch or went hungry. Buying a lunch was a luxury. Then they offered free lunch for some kids, but the process to get it was nasty to go through, and as I recall there was a voucher the child had to use - visible to all other students so they knew the kid was getting a free lunch. The teasing was enough to make some kids go hungry, because children are cruel.When everyone gets it, it's so much better.
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They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.
The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.
️The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."
It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.
"@mekkaokereke Should we have a society if sometimes rich? I'm just asking questions.
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@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.
We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.
@realtegan @mekkaokereke @paul_ipv6
If instead of means-testing they spent that money on tax audits to catch evasion by the very wealthyThey could quickly pay for the whole program
Tax audits are the most cost effective government spending possible
And get, unpopular with conservatives
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They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.
The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.
️The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."
It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.
"@mekkaokereke aside from everything else I read in the replies (and mostly agree with).
If there’s something that rich people as a class are into is making sure everyone else understands that they are rich.
In other words almost all of those who are rich enough won’t be caught dead sending their kid to the commoners’ child care when they can send them to the Very Expensive Childcare Where They Only Mingle With Other Rich Kids.
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They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.
The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.
️The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."
It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.
"@mekkaokereke journalists gotta eat too
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@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.
We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.
@realtegan @mekkaokereke Free school lunches for all is what Democrats and Gov. Walz did in Minnesota.
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@realtegan @mekkaokereke Free school lunches for all is what Democrats and Gov. Walz did in Minnesota.
@blainecross @mekkaokereke
When I saw how well it works locally - the general health of students went up, as well as attendance, grades, and graduation rates - I was completely won over to the idea of free lunches (and breakfasts) for all school children. I cheered when I heard what Walz did in Minnesota. -
@mekkaokereke I mean the obvious retort is - of course their childcare isn't free. What do you think taxes are?
@JessTheUnstill @mekkaokereke Also: "If you don't feel that the taxes that rich people pay are enough that they deserve whatever government services they receive, raise their rates until the feeling goes away."
Funny, by the way, that I never hear this about taxpayer-subsidized facilities used largely by the rich, like, say, Teterboro airport.
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@mekkaokereke The "but then rich people get more of it" argument consistently feels like concern-trolling designed to provide an excuse to clamp down on means-testing, which of course makes the problem worse because rich people always have ways to get around bureaucratic obstacles.
(cf. buying a second house in another school-zone so you don't have to send your kids to the "bad" (underfunded) school.)
@woozle @mekkaokereke Espesh since rich people always get more of everything anyway, so wtf? Let it go.
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@deirdrebeth @Fishercat @mekkaokereke That poor kids might get something that rich kids get.
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@blainecross @mekkaokereke
When I saw how well it works locally - the general health of students went up, as well as attendance, grades, and graduation rates - I was completely won over to the idea of free lunches (and breakfasts) for all school children. I cheered when I heard what Walz did in Minnesota.@realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke
it's one of the cheapest and most humane ways to raise graduation rates & test scores, lower absenteeism.
if someone is all bent about "someone taking advantage of free school meals", that tells me more about that person than about problems with the program.
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@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke Is it even *possible* for anyone (a child in particular) to be undeserving?
Seems like a pretty vital assumption that the answer is yes, but I’m not convinced.
I *might* be willing to concede that people who can afford to (and do) put effort into keeping others from eating are [themselves undeserving].
That's about it tho.
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They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.
The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.
️The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."
It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.
"@mekkaokereke Other relevant ways to reframe the debate:
"They pay $34 for burgers. Should their doormen, cooks, nannies, and drivers be able to access free child care conveniently near their workplaces?"
and
"They pay $34 for burgers. Should they be paying more in property tax, too?"
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They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.
The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.
️The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."
It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.
"@mekkaokereke journalists clearly have nothing interesting to cover right now, and the NYT needs to appease the conservatives that kept David Brooks on the payroll for 20+ years
️ -
@realtegan @mekkaokereke Free school lunches for all is what Democrats and Gov. Walz did in Minnesota.
@realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke Philadelphia School District also provides free lunch and breakfast to all students.
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@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.
We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.
@realtegan @mekkaokereke much easier and better to have progressive taxation than means tested services.
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@realtegan @mekkaokereke this was how it was at all my schools elementary through high school; it sure helps with shame around needing help too. kids should never be made to feel bad about not having money.
And then there's the question of how "food" and "lunch" are defined.
I was a gradeschooler in the early-mid '80s, in a rich-to-very-rich suburban U.S. school district. The lunches – not free – were high in processed fat, white starch, sugar, salt, and additives. Hamburgers with a bunch of filler; hot dogs, gas station-spec nachos, "french bread pizza", chikkin nuggets, dubious cheese, boiled-to-death canned vegetables, sugary canned fruit cocktail, etc. Filled up my belly (and enlarged it), but nutrition? LOLnope. I'm sure they've only got worse in the United States of Ketchup Counts As A Vegetable. Oh yeah, they also offered a "brown bag special" at lower cost, which was a couple slices of questionable bologna and a square of plastic cheez with imitation mayonnaise, on white bread.
Compare that slop to this what they somehow manage to do in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITzRFAfJsLA
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@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.
We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.
@realtegan Yes! Now do UBI.
