Free and reduced lunch program.

First, i agree with you about the full priced lunches... that just doesn't make sense. To your second point, however, i don't think so. I would imagine that Hawaii, being an Island, and Alaska, being cut off from the mainland US, generally have higher prices for things like food. higher reimbursement rates would only go to pay those increased costs. (I don't know this for a fact, but it does seam to make sense)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Aug 28 2007, 09:29 AM) [snapback]503172[/snapback]</div>

In Alaska, a gallon of bleach can run $20+. The upmark for food isn't as high, but it's there.

As for the reimbursing for paid lunches, it is possible the school isn't charging the parents the full cost of the meal. Do the states also chip in?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ShellyT @ Aug 28 2007, 09:15 AM) [snapback]503191[/snapback]</div>

That's true. There's no way that a full lunch can cost just a buck. That extra money has to come from somewhere.

I don't see what the problem is.

 

1. Students don't know if they qualify. Take the application home.

2. Parents don't know if they qualify. Fill out the application.

3. Everyone does it. No stigma for filling out and returning the application. (Not the school's job to decide who and who does not qualify.)

4. For some students, this is the ONLY balanced meal they get during the day. We also have free breakfast for our qualifying students because they wouldn't get a breakfast either if we didn't feed them.

Educators know that the better the health of a student, the better they do in school. They're healthier the more balanced meals they eat, than going without, or subsisting on a diet of beans and rice, or macaroni and cheese. When we test, everyone gets a snack break of fruit.

Go RED. Keep the undeserving stupid. Make those mothers have those babies.....then keep them malnourished. How else will we get our future janitors and maids.

 

This thread is disgusting!

You are advocating abusing a program designed for poor kids just to make sure that the numbers look good for Federal funding. Maybe if the parents weren't taxed so much they'd have some money to pay for their kids lunches. Of course you probably don't trust the parents to take care of their kids, because you knoiw better, or you can find examples of few that don't. But then that would take the power away from the all giving Government teet!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Aug 28 2007, 11:35 AM) [snapback]503256[/snapback]</div>

And you're advocating taking the food out of children's mouths with the old "let them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps or they're lazy" arguement. Equally if not more sickening. If the parents want to send their kid to school with a sack lunch, they are free to do so. But this program ensures that no child goes hungry.

As for cutting taxes, in what way are the taxes of the poor being cut enough to pay for anything? Not enough to pay for healthcare. And you want them to pay for lunches too.

Republicans: anti-abortion, Democrats: Pro-Child.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(roryjr @ Aug 28 2007, 12:34 PM) [snapback]503287[/snapback]</div>

And what do we have here? Why yes, it's another visit to Bizarro World! Meanwhile, back on Earth, The number of welfare recipients dropped under President Clinton. And your tax cuts won't make Bush's debt go away, it will just pass it on to your children.

Why DO conservatives hate children so much?

 

I just woke up and I'm running a fever and I have to drive 750 miles to go to a funeral tonight, so I'm probably a little crankier than I need to be - mods feel free to delete if I crossed a line:


You guys are all dipshits. OK, so not all, and maybe none of you are completely afflicted, but those who would rather play catfight than do anything that might actually address the issues you are itching about deserve the crap I'm dishing.

I mean, really, 'conservatives hate children?' 'Liberals love to kill them before they can even get out of the womb?' Time to grow up. That mindset doesn't solve anything - you can make good points on either side, but any possibility of improving the situation gets tossed out the window when you start acting like children.


And we end up with threads about why today's kids are particularly petulant, stubborn, and arrogant. I wonder where we got that from.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(roryjr @ Aug 30 2007, 01:23 AM) [snapback]504176[/snapback]</div>

The drop in welfare recipients has been pretty clearly tied to the welfare reform of '96. The five year limit enacted in 1996 has seen welfare recipients drop by 57%. While your implication that some of that is due to Clinton's low tax policies and excellent handling of the economy is surely true, the 5 year limit contributed by the Republican Revolution congress, which has kicked many folks out of the program, also deserves some credit. Your ignorance of this basic history makes me think it not worth arguing the large economic issues you seem to be ignoring.

The federal school lunch program was instituted after WWII when it was found a large number of the people rejected from the military for physical deficiencies had suffered from childhood malnutrition. That is, it was seen that many men who grew up in the low taxation era of the US were unable to serve in the army since they were physically stunted, deformed, and prone to disease due to poor childhood nutrition. Are you honestly suggesting that the federal government has no interest in insuring that its population grows up healthy enough to defend itself? Cutting the school lunch program, a very cheap and incredibly cost effective mechanism (doubly so in combination with its tie into the agricultural subsidy progam - now there's a legit pork target) to increase overall population health, productivity, and reduce future health expenditures, would be an extraordinarily poor idea. Any CEO who suggested cutting a program with this kind of proven ROI would be ousted immediately, but I do not know of any respectable politician on either side of the aisle that honestly unintelligent. It's as stupid as advocating the elimination of public school, again a position too provably inadvisable for any intelligent politician (and anti-government rhetoric to suppress moderate turnout aside, most of them are pretty smart folks) to advocate.

I almost wonder if you're deliberately creating a conservative caricature to make 'conservatives' look bad. The Republican party has a long track record of sound and well thought out governance, they do not promote canceling a cheap program which clearly and measurably serves the national interest (although they justifiably have quibbles around the edges, such as when it is trying to be expanded to breakfast, and dinner, with some sports thrown in, and maybe some free clothes...).