They pay $34 for burgers.

[realtegan@wandering.shop]

@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.

[lyle@cville.online]

@mekkaokereke Should we have a society if sometimes rich? I'm just asking questions.

[accordionbruce@mastodon.social]

@realtegan @mekkaokereke @paul_ipv6
If instead of means-testing they spent that money on tax audits to catch evasion by the very wealthy

They could quickly pay for the whole program

Tax audits are the most cost effective government spending possible

And get, unpopular with conservatives

[mylittlemetroid@sfba.social]

@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.

[0f4d0335@infosec.exchange]

@mekkaokereke journalists gotta eat too

[blainecross@mastodon.social]

@realtegan @mekkaokereke Free school lunches for all is what Democrats and Gov. Walz did in Minnesota.

[realtegan@wandering.shop]

@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.

[rst@mastodon.social]

@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.

[wendinoakland@beige.party]

@woozle @mekkaokereke Espesh since rich people always get more of everything anyway, so wtf? Let it go.

[wendinoakland@beige.party]

@deirdrebeth @Fishercat @mekkaokereke That poor kids might get something that rich kids get.

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@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.

[yenndc@kolektiva.social]

@philip

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.

[ameliabr@front-end.social]

@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?"

[heathborders@hachyderm.io]

@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 ‍️

[jonm@hachyderm.io]

@realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke Philadelphia School District also provides free lunch and breakfast to all students.

[lovestha@floss.social]

@realtegan @mekkaokereke much easier and better to have progressive taxation than means tested services.

[isocat@tiggi.es]

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

@bipolaron @realtegan @mekkaokereke

[flup@mastodon.scot]

@realtegan Yes! Now do UBI.

[woozle@toot.cat]

@wendinoakland

And, like, they should be paying more than enough taxes to cover the costs of their usage of any public service many times over -- how else to make the budget work when we have such extreme inequality? So sure, they should get the benefits of it too.

@mekkaokereke

[taatm@mathstodon.xyz]

@mekkaokereke
Perfect!