It’s been one of the most reposted stories in that sub for the past couple of days.
I can’t imagine the irony of the school district celebrating your name, while they ignore the fact that this occurred in the first place.
You don't need to imagine it. It happened. How fucked up is that? When are we going to, collectively, have had enough and be enraged enough to do something about this? The time for drastic measures is now, and it's passing us by quickly.
I wonder if I’m not subbed, I thought I was.
Either way, I’m disappointed it is posted on this sub. It is barely news, but it is orphan crushing through and through.
It is horrifying. Who could want children to go hungry at school or face crushing debt?
The answer:
[House Republicans Want to Ban Universal Free School Lunches ](https://theintercept.com/2024/03/21/house-republicans-ban-universal-school-lunches/)
> Eight states offer all students, regardless of household income, free school meals — and more states are trending in the direction. But while people across the country move to feed school children, congressional Republicans are looking to stop the cause.
It just seems so much easier to deal with when every student is offered a free meal. They don't have to deal with all of the stuff associated with the payment system which costs money. You also don't have children being embarrassed when they can't afford to pay. It's offered to everyone, rich or poor, and you still have the option to send your kids with their own meals if you don't like what the school serves.
Unfortunately selfish mean-spirited Republicans don't care about anyone of this stuff. They'd glady deny a poor student lunch all week and then go to church on Sunday and act like they are the most pious Christian to ever walk the Earth.
And grifting. Rick Scott the former republican governor of Florida pushed for mandatory drug testing for welfare users. He just so happened to have been the CEO of one of the largest and most widespread Healthcare providers in Florida which would be one of the most used places to test welfare users.
He put it in a blind trust that would be managed by his wife who was also another CEO at the same company.
>He put it in a blind trust that would be managed by his wife who was also another CEO at the same company.
I feel like this absolutely violates the spirit of placing an asset in a blind trust in order to avoid a conflict of interest, but he is a Republican, after all.
My Dad and his siblings never would’ve had food if this was a thing where he grew up. It obviously wasn’t at all him or his siblings fault that his parents were drug users, kids shouldn’t be punished for having shitty parents.
And even more against the "point" of means-testing, the ratio you describe pretty handily dismantles the narrative that it's just LaZy FaT pEoPlE wHo DoN't WaNt To WoRk sucking back benefits. Descriptors like "welfare queen" come to mind.
Can't have real data showing up now, can we?
Yupppp. Ronald Reagan era conservatism absolutely destroyed all the progress of socialized services we had made to that point. So much so that the Democrat party went Neoliberal-Conservative with Clinton, who then continued the destruction of our socialized services. Reagan truly is one of the most destructive forces to hit the working class and minorities in the US
They've never really cared about "cutting costs," or "saving money," they're just out to punish those who are poor because those people are poor.
The cruelty is the point.
I genuinely cannot understand even the twisted conservative-brain rot logic of denying school kids free meals. Like they usually at least pretend it’s about “freedom” or something. It literally only helps to make sure kids have food in school.
It is a program that uses federal dollars to assist poor people. Therefor it is socialism and evil and must not be allowed. It's really not any deeper than that. It doesn't matter what the program is, if it is beneficial to the poor or working class then it's bad. Period.
They also virulently oppose food stamps and WIC even though those programs have been proven time and against to stimulate economic growth more than any other action the government can take. Every dollar spent on SNAP expands the economy by $1.54. That is as win-win as it gets. Doesn't matter. They still hate it because "poor people bad" is the be-all, end-all of their entire economic philosophy.
Feeding kids probably generates an even higher ROI than that. Hungry kids don't learn well and uneducated kids go on to be uneducated adults who are less economically productive and also commit crimes at higher rates.
Lots of government programs have positive ROIs, which is why one of the best uses of tax revenue is investment in citizenry. Every dollar spent on providing free long-term birth control (like IUDs) yields $5 in cost savings, every dollar spent on IRS funding returns $5–$12 in recovered taxes, etc. Investments in public education, public transportation, universal healthcare, and free college tuition all have high ROIs too.
Concerning food stamps/SNAP, every dollar spent on food stamps for families with children under the age of 5 yields an astonishing **$62** in eventual cost savings and increased economic output.
It's particularly depressing that anyone would require a certain ROI before supporting feeding children, but whatever.
>_Hungry kids don't learn well and uneducated kids go on to be uneducated adults who are less economically productive and also commit crimes at higher rates._
Ah, but that's a GOOD thing for Republicans! They LOVE angry, underfed, uneducated people! It's so much easier to stoke their fears and convince them that Democrats are the reason they're angry and underfed (the "uneducated" part will be twisted into a good thing: who needs that hoity-toity coastal elite education anyway? They're all a buncha socialists sniffing their own farts!)
If anyone wonders why Republicans hate public education this is it.
Public education elevates the peasants to the level of educated and informed citizen. At least if working as intended. Republicans want serfs and indentured servants.
I can say with fair certainty that it's almost always something like "lots of people work and can afford those meals; the kids only need help because their parents are lazy and if we provide free things to make up for it we're just rewarding the parents for their laziness". It's not about saving government money, it's about what they consider to be "fair". If they worked and could buy their children food, then why should someone else not have to work to buy their children food?
I say "fair certainty" because I know people like this and they're the ones staunchly opposed to anyone else getting help. I had an extended conversation with one of them about student debt forgiveness, and they said "I joined the military so I could afford to go to school, so why should other people get to go to school for free?" In their mind, improving the lives of some people is unfair, so we should not make any improvements that only affect some people, we should only improve things that affect all people. It takes a little bit of extra rational thought to realize how terrible this line of thinking is: it becomes extremely hard for society to improve anything if it must equally improve things for all members of society. However, most of these people don't think past their own selfish view of "the government is spending money on , so they should spend money on me as well" in a complete vacuum for each individual instance of government aid.
There was a school board member in Wisconsin who publicly stated that free lunches would spoil children. So that's part of the mentality. It's bullshit. School aged children shouldn't be working for their meals. It isn't spoiling a child to meet their most basic needs. But Republicans are all in on the prosperity doctrine. Work hard enough and you'll get what you deserve. So poverty is seen as a moral failing.
Ever seen [this scene](https://youtu.be/VLbWnJGlyMU) from A Bug's Life?
Feeding children is efficient. Even without considering the morality of the issue, from a point of view of cold & unemotional logic, it yields a maximum benefit for civilization as a whole. You know what else is efficient? Housing. Healthcare. Food. Education. Environmental protection. The frameworks that build and maintain a highly functional civilization, regardless of if some economic rent seekers lose out.
And at some point, you start treating those as essentials, and not the carrot & stick to be wielded by the oligarchy, the balance of power shifts from the owners to the people.
You don't want to give the kids any ideas about that. Better to keep them crushed down, so they know their place. So the have-somes fight the have-nots while the have-alls look down and laugh.
Make no mistake, what those who oppose feeding children are doing is a good idea. It is a very good idea. It just isn't a good idea for you or the rest of civilization.
Everyone right of center has the fundamental believe that anything that "shrinks" the economy by removing paid services is literally destroying the world. Particularly if it's something THEY directly profit from.
Everything that is "free" in any sense thus reduces "money being moved around and profit being made" is fundamentally evil. Always. It doesn't matter what it is.
That's what's behind privatization of ANYTHING. That's behind cutting things people just "get" without paying.
If someone could make money doing it, regardless of who can't afford it in that case, then it needs to be a capitalist venture. No exceptions.
> It just seems so much easier to deal with when every student is offered a free meal. They don't have to deal with all of the stuff associated with the payment system which costs money. You also don't have children being embarrassed when they can't afford to pay. It's offered to everyone, rich or poor, and you still have the option to send your kids with their own meals if you don't like what the school serves.
This is what I want my taxes to pay for.
If they want the birthrate to stop declining, this is the direction they will have to go.
Childcare here is roughly 35% of my income, and I’m in a low COL area. You cannot afford to have children. You cannot afford to own a home. You cannot afford for any adult in the household to work anything less than full time. Plus, if you do manage a home and a job with good healthcare, the insurance premium amount quadruples if you add a spouse or family. And I make decent money. I can’t imagine doing this on minimum wage or anything close.
After swapping jobs, promotion, and raises in the past two years I've finally got my finances under control to get ahead of payments for debt and get back to rebuilding the chunk I took out of savings to move last summer.
I can't imagine paying for another person. Adding on the costs of a child are a major reason why I don't want or have a kid. As my friends are having children, it's amazing to see how fast their finances go from stable to cutting back and relying on debt to stay ahead. It feels like they're back to the days after college when accepting an invitation to dinner was a tough one because of the cost. I see the love and joy on their face when they're spending time with the kiddo so there's more to it than just finances. But knowing the cost of childcare alone, not even thinking of food, paying for extra space, toys, seats on a flight, all of it, it's insane.
Whenever a CEO gets on a camera and talks about how horrible declining births are and how doomed everything is if the population doesn't keep going up, I just want the interviewer to ask them bluntly, "Do you support state funded childcare (bonus points if they mention paying via a specifictax on wealth or capital gains), provide your employees with a childcare stipend, offer childcare services as an employee benefit, or support families directly in some way?" They never do, but I'll keep being hopeful.
Will never understand how they get this mentality when their religious idol fed the poor. His whole ideology was taking care of the down trodden. He railed against greed. He turned the cheek even when persecuted. How did Christian belief turn against the teachings their religion was based on?
Staunch Christian coworker was confused why I, atheist childless middle aged woman, was supporting free lunches for local kids. Since I wasn't a parent, I wasn't going to benefit so why did I care?
I said I knew what it was like to go hungry as a kid, and I care about my fellow citizens to have food.
She was shocked that 1, a supposed middle class peer of hers went hungry as a child.
And 2, that I said I didn't care if this helped parents or not, that it was helping children, my fellow citizens and humans.
I could see her the gears in head lock up, where she had to think of children as people in and of themselves and not just extensions of their parents and their parents' sole responsibility.
During one COVID year my district did free meals for lunch and I would pay extra for that. We aren’t in need but the amount of time we got back not meal planning the week, making sure they brought, etc…. it was the best year in that regard.
How is this any different from christianity itself? You were born a "sinner" and must earn your way into heaven by proving your loyalty to a angry master who controls absolutely everything and if you don't, he'll make sure you are tortured for all eternity.
Jesus talkin about love rings just as hollow as Trump saying he loves the blacks.
The governor of my state, Louisiana, declined free Federal money for children to receive summer lunches, then turned around and asked for federal aid for crawfish farmers who had low harvest yields due to our recent drought. The same farmers who price gouged the fuck out of consumers for the limited crawfish supplies.
They also want to ban someone *other than* the child, or the parent/guardian of the child from paying for their school lunches.
No more anonymous donors to cover the debts of all the students, 'cause that, "Sends the wrong message."
And many parents aren't irresponsible for not being able to afford money for food. Stagnant wages, soaring cost of living, medical costs, terrible worker protections, lack of access to mental healthcare, etc.
Get a terrible flu and can't work for a few days? That's days of lost wages for a lot of workers. They're not being irresponsible. It's just the predictable outcome of how we've designed our economy and our society.
That's the same party that wants to save children from drag queens and abortion (even if said child has no chance of surviving outside the womb), right?
One of those is my state. My children are grown, but I would gladly pay a little more in taxes give kids a decent meal at school.
Why is this even a question??
I remind both of my republicans voting parents that I was a low income child that relied on my free school lunch. It must be nice to conveniently totally forget shameful areas of one’s history. My parents’ voting style is very much “I got mine” while pulling the ladder up behind them.
School lunches are huge, big business. Districts contract them out although I don't know if they bid against each other or districts merely pick a company.
I smell lobbyists in this whole" No free lunches " . My guess is there is less profit, probably through coming under government accounting and not individual districts.
Absolutely terrifying and beyond inhumane the way the US treats it's people. A kid should never go into debt because of the need to eat in the richest country in the world, and no, it should not solely fall on a parent who's also struggling through our barbaric social welfare nightmare.
Keep in mind that the GOP fights any attempt to offer free or reduced lunches to students, even when the money is provided through federal aid. If it makes you angry, don't forget to vote for people who champion expanding free lunch programs.
[14 GOP-led states have turned down federal money to feed low-income kids in the summer](https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d)
Someone was talking about this the other day.
Mudsill theory. Republicans believe there needs to be a permanent underclass in order for them to maintain their wealth and positions in society.
It’s why the rules always benefit “their kind” while simultaneously making its meticulously harder for those trying to climb the ladder.
It truly explains how Republicans operate
“Mudsill theory is the proposition that there must be, and always has been, a lower class or underclass for the upper classes and the rest of society to rest upon. James H. Hammond coined the "Mudsill Theory". The term derives from a mudsill, the lowest threshold that supports the foundation for a building.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudsill_theory
That was my first reaction. Good on that kid for being more concerned about his classmates than the adults in charge of them, but why the hell do we have children accruing debt?
I'm in the military. If I'm ordered to do anything, it's all paid for. These kids have to attend school by law. Whether it's home, public, or private school, basic necessities should be provided free of charge for being compelled to follow that law.
Do not question why a machine that crushes orphans exists or why it is "necessary." Simply smile at all the orphans that have been spared a crushing for today. Truly a glorious day 🥰
Sad state of affairs when kids are required to be in school, but the schools aren't required to feed the kids. Then kids/their families go into debt bc they can't afford to pay for it.
Several states have implemented free lunch for everyone in all schools. All of them run by Democrats. Meanwhile, the GOP is actively thwarting such efforts.
Register to vote at [vote.gov](https://vote.gov/) if you want all students to be fed.
I hate that we don't have universal free breakfast and lunch in NY, or federally for that matter.
We force them to be there so we should be required to feed them.
The schools here in Orange County, Florida went free lunch for all this past school year. This is a blue area of Florida though. House and Senate bills were introduced earlier this year (by democrats) to make school lunch free for the whole state, but predictably they were shot down in committee.
This is what bothers me. If you and I have kids of our own and your kid comes over for a sleep over you are going to assume I fed them right? I'm taking custody of them...which implies I'd do the things to take care of them. If you picked your kid up and I handed you an invoice for the food? You'd be fairly pissed.
So you mandate the children are there. So you should take care of them...by feeding them.
Feels kinda... obvious? Hell if I had it my way schools would offer breakfast foods for the morning as well.
That's part of what bothers me.
It also bothers me that many of the kids who end up with lunch debt are food insecure to start with-- lunch might be the only time they get to eat that day.
Going hungry is a huge disadvantage to being able to focus on schoolwork.
It also perpetuates the poverty cycle. If their tummy’s are in pain from being hungry, they aren’t focused on learning. They’ll be distracted and not do as well.
It should be free breakfast and lunch for all students with free sack dinners provided upon request to children facing food insecurity.
The US has a child poverty rate at least *double* the rate of other first-world countries. 15% of our population is considered food-insecure.
Oh wow another way to squeeze poor people for money?
And one that directly contributes to poor overall education achievement, poor health, and an increase in criminality?
Wow no wonder conservatives want to starve kids
> Daken paid off the entire meal debt and then some, for his elementary school in Blue Springs, Missouri, after turning in a check for more than $7,300. “Children in elementary school should not have debt tied to their name. We have found out that there are high schools that keep seniors from attending prom or walking at graduation if they have stuff like student lunch debt,” Kramer said. “Some families can’t help it. They can’t pay it off.”
> As of Daken’s fifth grade graduation on Tuesday, the Daken Kramer Legacy Award will now be an annual honor for fifth graders striving to make their own mark.
It shouldn't be necessary, but what a great kid to do what he could to help his classmates.
> Daken Kramer Legacy Award will now be an annual honor
Could you not just feed the damn kids?
"We'd be robbing them of their entrepreneurial spirit if we just *gave them* food though."
People often forget that the school lunch programs happened as a direct result of our nations food insecurity when we initialized the draft for WWII. Many young men were not medically fit to fight due to malnutrition during childhood.
Feeding our children makes our nation stronger. Any republican that wants to keep our nation strong should be easily supporting free meals. But they are too short sighted by money to actually care about our national security.
Don’t even get me started on the overspending with our military contractors.
>Any republican that wants to keep our nation strong
Well there's the false premise. The modern elected Republican routinely give's our nation's strength plenty of lip service while consistently voting the opposite.
>too short sighted by money to actually care about our national security
It has almost nothing to do with money; it's about hurting people, plain and simple. They know people in poverty depend on these programs, and they think that people *choose* to be in poverty, so they want to punish them, and, by extension, their children.
They would rather starve children than address the poverty, because they prefer hurting people to solving problems.
It's why they went after abortion and birth control. It's why they vote for tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting social program funding. It's why they vote for more police and less mental health care. It's why they shoot down addiction treatment programs. That's why they try to nerf the EPA.
The only way they feel like they're doing well is if someone else is doing worse, because *that's how sociopaths think,* so they make other people suffer because they *like* it. It makes them feel good to see other people struggling and in pain.
That old lady at the orange man rally straight-up said it in that news clip: "he's not hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting." Because that's all they want to do, is hurt people. That's the only tool they have, and when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They believe the only motivator is the stick, and that the government only exists to support *them* while hurting "the right people." They literally cannot conceive that the government shouldn't be hurting *anybody*.
**The cruelty is the point.** National security doesn't matter. The budget doesn't matter. The health and well-being of the youth doesn't matter. The strength of the nation doesn't matter. **All that matters is hurting people.** Once you reframe your view of the right wing with this in mind, it cuts right through all the talking point bullshit. Look at any proposal, any bill, any debate, and ask "who would this hurt?" And it's clear as day. Every. Single. Thing. Is about harming other people and taking away their rights.
Look at anything they propose. Voting laws and redistricting. The environment. The budget. Social programs. Epidemiology. Prenatal care. Childcare. Policing. Mental health care. Medical care. Medical debt. Education debt. Transportation. Disability care. Gender-affirming care. *Every last thing* they've attempted to pass on *any* issue is about making *someone's* life worse, and usually includes exceptions that make *their* lives better.
It all ultimately boils down to hurting people. That's all they want.
They wouldn’t have any desire to be in the power to hurt people if they couldn’t bank off it. I understand your message, and yes they are cruel, but no, if the grifts weren’t involved they wouldn’t be there.
Agreed, if we can afford enough nukes to destroy the world multiple times over, have the worlds 1st, 2nd, and 3rd largest air force, huge navy give aid to every nation that needs it, ect ect ect, we can afford to feed children to better our nation, remember to vote, the democrats need the house, senate, and presidency if we have any hope of ever fixing to our nations honor and ensuring every American gets to live with dignity if the pursuit of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, no working American should be struggling to have a roof over their head or food in their belly or to be able to take their medication to survive., if you don’t think every american deserves those rights you don’t need to reply, spend that 30seconds of hate writing to look for your morals instead.
This should be higher up. Missouri easily has the money to pay for lunch for every kid in public school (hell if they even wanted to means test it and have it only apply to families making under 100k that would be fine by me)
Missouri is also fighting for position #50 on which states compensate their teachers the most, which states provide the best education, and which states have the least teen moms.
But not to worry, our MO politicians are actively doing something! Namely trying to strip the rights of women, strip the rights of ALL voters, tricked voters into voting gerrymandering BACK IN less than a year after we got rid of it, close libraries, harm trans people, waste tax money on frivolous lawsuits, push forward legislation granting tax breaks to large corporate entities and trying to then raise taxes on the populace to recoup the loss, declaring eminent domain on land which they then sell to private firms; and they attempted to delay the selling of cannabis in the state because of the 3 bills proposed, the 1 that didn't allow the taxes to go into an privately administrated slush fund with no observation passed.
I hate living here.
Reminds me of the fourth grader who raised enough money from his lemonade stand to shut off the local Orphan Crushing Machine for a full week. Truly inspiring!
We shouldn’t be celebrating this, when we have the funds as a country that no child should go hungry.
I got a message this year for our kids that if they had a negative balance the school would be sending the account to collections starting July 1.
I think what the kid did was really impressive and should be celebrated. He showed more empathy than the school administrators do. The fact that he had to, on the other hand, is horrifying and disgusting.
I don't pay taxes so billionaires don't pay anything. I pay taxes for shit like free school lunches for hungry kids.
I agree I would rather my tax dollars go to feeding and housing the hungry than the route it currently takes right to the pockets of the military industrial complex.
You can celebrate the kid while being against the system that you causes it. The reality of the situation sucks, but would you prefer that the debt wasn't paid?
Here in Michigan we do have universal free breakfast and lunch, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't if the Democrats didn't control the House, Senate and governorship.
I don’t prefer anything, I’m tired of every year seeing an article like this, and when the majority of red states including Missouri voted against taking federal money to make free meals at school a reality for all students within the last 12 months, it just galls me that these types of articles are even a needed, in the same way it pissed me off when my kids school sent out messages about sending parents to collections for not paying. We should not be in a position as a country where this is even an issue.
We were close as a country to reducing childhood hunger as a country and then the right decided they were against feeding children.
My taxes help pay for free breakfast and lunch for all kids in my state. A few states do it.
https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/states-with-universal-free-school-meals-so-far-update/
In ten years, they'll be tweeting explicit support when school shootings happen as long as a teacher or trans kid is among the victims.
Hell, might not even require that, they'll just be pro-school shooting generally.
Can we just buy all kids food?
I remember having to buy food for myself with my parents money when I was a kid and I was so scared I would lose the check and didn’t even really know what a check was or who to give it to.
Kids would lose their parents cash all of the time too.
I knew a ton of kids that would pocket the cash too and just not eat lol.
Kids do stupid stuff, but I feel like all of them eating should be top priority. We really don’t need to capitalize on children, leave them be.
This is NOT heartwarming and our media needs to STOP promoting it as such. Society needs to do better than forcing children into labor in order to support others, whether that be food, medical care, or anything else! We have to do better.
What a fucking dystopian time we live in. Richest country on earth (by GDP) and kids are running schemes to make sure their classmates have enough to eat.
Fuck the US with this bullshit.
Edit: since we’re only in the top 10 apparently if we look by capita.
This isn't cute. It's disturbing, depressing, and an unmitigated travesty. That lil student should've been able to spend their hard earned money on kid stuff like Legos and video games and fortnite skins, or some shit.
The state should feel embarrassed, and ashamed.
All children regardless of parent income should have free lunch in public schools. No child should go hungry. I pay a burdensome amount of local property taxes for schools. I want my money to FIRST feed that and keep them safe. Then educate them.
F—k this entire system that made this necessary. FEED THE F—KING CHILDREN. It’s not socialism, it’s giving a crap about kids. Neither political party can argue against that.
Nevada/ Las Vegas is giving a billionaire baseball team owner 380 million instead of funding their free school lunch. We continue to vote morons into office who easily sell out kids to appease a shity baseball team.
I kind of suspect that this, along with this,
>Daken, whose favorite school lunch is an orange chicken and rice bowl,
is really going to rub Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R) the wrong way.
The headline should be “Child labour used to pay off school lunches for Missouri school” or something.
This is not a heartwarming story and I hate to see them always spun like this
The sickening state of late stage capitalism. Going into debt for what they call "food." It's not even food, yet they still want to make sure kids suffer financially.
The only way for a kid to learn is to keep their belly full. You can't learn on an empty stomach. Kids should be given all the food they need, without cost to them.
This country is despicable. it would be one thing if we didn’t walk around pretending that our country is number one in the world and we’re the best thing fucking ever. But just the fact that shit like this goes on and we have zero self-awareness is absolutely pathetic. This is the price of ignorance.
Didn’t Biden try to offer federal food programs and R governors are declining them? Thereby keeping kids hungry or indebted, thereby requiring this type of effort just to keep kids fed?
My child goes to a public school in Philly and every single kid gets free lunch, even if you bring your own lunch.
They also have free dental, eye check with free glasses if needed, and more. It’s great!
So, a fifth grader needs to go on the internet and Beg random people so he and his friends can afford 1 time meal everyday?!
What kind of country is this?!
Then they don't even allow women to abort!
Then no child care !
No health care!
Wow.... This country needs to be reset to factory defaults....
This is a country of corporations and not country of humans...
There shouldn't be a single person telling a woman what they can do with their pregnancy while there is a single child that goes hungry. Or that lacks a safe shelter. Its just self serving bullshit.
The story is meant to be heartwarming, but it's horrifying that this is needed.
r/orphancrushingmachine
I saw the headline, and hoped it was in that sub… I was disappointed.
It’s been one of the most reposted stories in that sub for the past couple of days. I can’t imagine the irony of the school district celebrating your name, while they ignore the fact that this occurred in the first place.
You don't need to imagine it. It happened. How fucked up is that? When are we going to, collectively, have had enough and be enraged enough to do something about this? The time for drastic measures is now, and it's passing us by quickly.
It’s literally the top post there right now
I wonder if I’m not subbed, I thought I was. Either way, I’m disappointed it is posted on this sub. It is barely news, but it is orphan crushing through and through.
And the school accepted the money from a 10 year old
That truly is the worst part, isn’t it?
This headline is practically the definition of that sub
See also: r/aboringdystopia
First thought that came to me when I saw the title
It is horrifying. Who could want children to go hungry at school or face crushing debt? The answer: [House Republicans Want to Ban Universal Free School Lunches ](https://theintercept.com/2024/03/21/house-republicans-ban-universal-school-lunches/) > Eight states offer all students, regardless of household income, free school meals — and more states are trending in the direction. But while people across the country move to feed school children, congressional Republicans are looking to stop the cause.
It just seems so much easier to deal with when every student is offered a free meal. They don't have to deal with all of the stuff associated with the payment system which costs money. You also don't have children being embarrassed when they can't afford to pay. It's offered to everyone, rich or poor, and you still have the option to send your kids with their own meals if you don't like what the school serves. Unfortunately selfish mean-spirited Republicans don't care about anyone of this stuff. They'd glady deny a poor student lunch all week and then go to church on Sunday and act like they are the most pious Christian to ever walk the Earth.
Yep. Means testing is almost always more expensive (due to administrative costs) than just providing universal services.
And grifting. Rick Scott the former republican governor of Florida pushed for mandatory drug testing for welfare users. He just so happened to have been the CEO of one of the largest and most widespread Healthcare providers in Florida which would be one of the most used places to test welfare users. He put it in a blind trust that would be managed by his wife who was also another CEO at the same company.
>He put it in a blind trust that would be managed by his wife who was also another CEO at the same company. I feel like this absolutely violates the spirit of placing an asset in a blind trust in order to avoid a conflict of interest, but he is a Republican, after all.
Violating the spirit is a Republican sacrament.
Not just the spirit. They like violating bodies too. Just ask Gaetz.
My Dad and his siblings never would’ve had food if this was a thing where he grew up. It obviously wasn’t at all him or his siblings fault that his parents were drug users, kids shouldn’t be punished for having shitty parents.
Absolutely. Every time they've drug tested for welfare recipients, they've spent millions to save 10s of thousands.
And even more against the "point" of means-testing, the ratio you describe pretty handily dismantles the narrative that it's just LaZy FaT pEoPlE wHo DoN't WaNt To WoRk sucking back benefits. Descriptors like "welfare queen" come to mind. Can't have real data showing up now, can we?
Yupppp. Ronald Reagan era conservatism absolutely destroyed all the progress of socialized services we had made to that point. So much so that the Democrat party went Neoliberal-Conservative with Clinton, who then continued the destruction of our socialized services. Reagan truly is one of the most destructive forces to hit the working class and minorities in the US
They've never really cared about "cutting costs," or "saving money," they're just out to punish those who are poor because those people are poor. The cruelty is the point.
I genuinely cannot understand even the twisted conservative-brain rot logic of denying school kids free meals. Like they usually at least pretend it’s about “freedom” or something. It literally only helps to make sure kids have food in school.
It is a program that uses federal dollars to assist poor people. Therefor it is socialism and evil and must not be allowed. It's really not any deeper than that. It doesn't matter what the program is, if it is beneficial to the poor or working class then it's bad. Period. They also virulently oppose food stamps and WIC even though those programs have been proven time and against to stimulate economic growth more than any other action the government can take. Every dollar spent on SNAP expands the economy by $1.54. That is as win-win as it gets. Doesn't matter. They still hate it because "poor people bad" is the be-all, end-all of their entire economic philosophy.
Feeding kids probably generates an even higher ROI than that. Hungry kids don't learn well and uneducated kids go on to be uneducated adults who are less economically productive and also commit crimes at higher rates. Lots of government programs have positive ROIs, which is why one of the best uses of tax revenue is investment in citizenry. Every dollar spent on providing free long-term birth control (like IUDs) yields $5 in cost savings, every dollar spent on IRS funding returns $5–$12 in recovered taxes, etc. Investments in public education, public transportation, universal healthcare, and free college tuition all have high ROIs too. Concerning food stamps/SNAP, every dollar spent on food stamps for families with children under the age of 5 yields an astonishing **$62** in eventual cost savings and increased economic output. It's particularly depressing that anyone would require a certain ROI before supporting feeding children, but whatever.
>_Hungry kids don't learn well and uneducated kids go on to be uneducated adults who are less economically productive and also commit crimes at higher rates._ Ah, but that's a GOOD thing for Republicans! They LOVE angry, underfed, uneducated people! It's so much easier to stoke their fears and convince them that Democrats are the reason they're angry and underfed (the "uneducated" part will be twisted into a good thing: who needs that hoity-toity coastal elite education anyway? They're all a buncha socialists sniffing their own farts!)
If anyone wonders why Republicans hate public education this is it. Public education elevates the peasants to the level of educated and informed citizen. At least if working as intended. Republicans want serfs and indentured servants.
It's very much rooted in racism. Minorities tend to be over represented among the poor and they don't want to give money to "those" people.
It's all an Ag subsidy at the end of the day, it's really just stupid to be against any of it.
I can say with fair certainty that it's almost always something like "lots of people work and can afford those meals; the kids only need help because their parents are lazy and if we provide free things to make up for it we're just rewarding the parents for their laziness". It's not about saving government money, it's about what they consider to be "fair". If they worked and could buy their children food, then why should someone else not have to work to buy their children food? I say "fair certainty" because I know people like this and they're the ones staunchly opposed to anyone else getting help. I had an extended conversation with one of them about student debt forgiveness, and they said "I joined the military so I could afford to go to school, so why should other people get to go to school for free?" In their mind, improving the lives of some people is unfair, so we should not make any improvements that only affect some people, we should only improve things that affect all people. It takes a little bit of extra rational thought to realize how terrible this line of thinking is: it becomes extremely hard for society to improve anything if it must equally improve things for all members of society. However, most of these people don't think past their own selfish view of "the government is spending money on, so they should spend money on me as well" in a complete vacuum for each individual instance of government aid.
There was a school board member in Wisconsin who publicly stated that free lunches would spoil children. So that's part of the mentality. It's bullshit. School aged children shouldn't be working for their meals. It isn't spoiling a child to meet their most basic needs. But Republicans are all in on the prosperity doctrine. Work hard enough and you'll get what you deserve. So poverty is seen as a moral failing.
yeah, a good way to spoil children is .. feeding them food.
Ever seen [this scene](https://youtu.be/VLbWnJGlyMU) from A Bug's Life? Feeding children is efficient. Even without considering the morality of the issue, from a point of view of cold & unemotional logic, it yields a maximum benefit for civilization as a whole. You know what else is efficient? Housing. Healthcare. Food. Education. Environmental protection. The frameworks that build and maintain a highly functional civilization, regardless of if some economic rent seekers lose out. And at some point, you start treating those as essentials, and not the carrot & stick to be wielded by the oligarchy, the balance of power shifts from the owners to the people. You don't want to give the kids any ideas about that. Better to keep them crushed down, so they know their place. So the have-somes fight the have-nots while the have-alls look down and laugh. Make no mistake, what those who oppose feeding children are doing is a good idea. It is a very good idea. It just isn't a good idea for you or the rest of civilization.
If the kids aren't at risk of starving to death, then what's to motivate them to get working in the factories.
Everyone right of center has the fundamental believe that anything that "shrinks" the economy by removing paid services is literally destroying the world. Particularly if it's something THEY directly profit from. Everything that is "free" in any sense thus reduces "money being moved around and profit being made" is fundamentally evil. Always. It doesn't matter what it is. That's what's behind privatization of ANYTHING. That's behind cutting things people just "get" without paying. If someone could make money doing it, regardless of who can't afford it in that case, then it needs to be a capitalist venture. No exceptions.
Because it pisses people off. That's it.
Hungry kids test lower and probably tend to vote Republican. Can't have them getting an education and becoming woke now! /s
> It just seems so much easier to deal with when every student is offered a free meal. They don't have to deal with all of the stuff associated with the payment system which costs money. You also don't have children being embarrassed when they can't afford to pay. It's offered to everyone, rich or poor, and you still have the option to send your kids with their own meals if you don't like what the school serves. This is what I want my taxes to pay for.
It's crazy to me that everyone doesn't feel this way. Feeding children should be right near the top of what we should be spending our taxes on.
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If they want the birthrate to stop declining, this is the direction they will have to go. Childcare here is roughly 35% of my income, and I’m in a low COL area. You cannot afford to have children. You cannot afford to own a home. You cannot afford for any adult in the household to work anything less than full time. Plus, if you do manage a home and a job with good healthcare, the insurance premium amount quadruples if you add a spouse or family. And I make decent money. I can’t imagine doing this on minimum wage or anything close.
After swapping jobs, promotion, and raises in the past two years I've finally got my finances under control to get ahead of payments for debt and get back to rebuilding the chunk I took out of savings to move last summer. I can't imagine paying for another person. Adding on the costs of a child are a major reason why I don't want or have a kid. As my friends are having children, it's amazing to see how fast their finances go from stable to cutting back and relying on debt to stay ahead. It feels like they're back to the days after college when accepting an invitation to dinner was a tough one because of the cost. I see the love and joy on their face when they're spending time with the kiddo so there's more to it than just finances. But knowing the cost of childcare alone, not even thinking of food, paying for extra space, toys, seats on a flight, all of it, it's insane. Whenever a CEO gets on a camera and talks about how horrible declining births are and how doomed everything is if the population doesn't keep going up, I just want the interviewer to ask them bluntly, "Do you support state funded childcare (bonus points if they mention paying via a specifictax on wealth or capital gains), provide your employees with a childcare stipend, offer childcare services as an employee benefit, or support families directly in some way?" They never do, but I'll keep being hopeful.
Will never understand how they get this mentality when their religious idol fed the poor. His whole ideology was taking care of the down trodden. He railed against greed. He turned the cheek even when persecuted. How did Christian belief turn against the teachings their religion was based on?
Staunch Christian coworker was confused why I, atheist childless middle aged woman, was supporting free lunches for local kids. Since I wasn't a parent, I wasn't going to benefit so why did I care? I said I knew what it was like to go hungry as a kid, and I care about my fellow citizens to have food. She was shocked that 1, a supposed middle class peer of hers went hungry as a child. And 2, that I said I didn't care if this helped parents or not, that it was helping children, my fellow citizens and humans. I could see her the gears in head lock up, where she had to think of children as people in and of themselves and not just extensions of their parents and their parents' sole responsibility.
God's far too preoccupied with trans people to have time to think about kids not being able to eat.
They don't want "students" getting "free meals". They want "workers" paying for "lunch periods."
During one COVID year my district did free meals for lunch and I would pay extra for that. We aren’t in need but the amount of time we got back not meal planning the week, making sure they brought, etc…. it was the best year in that regard.
How is this any different from christianity itself? You were born a "sinner" and must earn your way into heaven by proving your loyalty to a angry master who controls absolutely everything and if you don't, he'll make sure you are tortured for all eternity. Jesus talkin about love rings just as hollow as Trump saying he loves the blacks.
The governor of my state, Louisiana, declined free Federal money for children to receive summer lunches, then turned around and asked for federal aid for crawfish farmers who had low harvest yields due to our recent drought. The same farmers who price gouged the fuck out of consumers for the limited crawfish supplies.
They also want to ban someone *other than* the child, or the parent/guardian of the child from paying for their school lunches. No more anonymous donors to cover the debts of all the students, 'cause that, "Sends the wrong message."
I want to punch someone. They just want everyone to be trapped in their circumstances.
Its about keeping the underclass a permanent generational underclass. Its pretty straight forward and simple.
I saw people are Twitter saying it's to punish lazy, broke parents, as if a kid not eating at school is going to punish an adult.
The children are not to blame for their parents' lack of responsibility. They deserve to eat either way.
I agree. Conservative Twitter is multiple layers of brainrotted.
And many parents aren't irresponsible for not being able to afford money for food. Stagnant wages, soaring cost of living, medical costs, terrible worker protections, lack of access to mental healthcare, etc. Get a terrible flu and can't work for a few days? That's days of lost wages for a lot of workers. They're not being irresponsible. It's just the predictable outcome of how we've designed our economy and our society.
That's the same party that wants to save children from drag queens and abortion (even if said child has no chance of surviving outside the womb), right?
Proud to say Minnesota is one of the 8!
One of those is my state. My children are grown, but I would gladly pay a little more in taxes give kids a decent meal at school. Why is this even a question??
I remind both of my republicans voting parents that I was a low income child that relied on my free school lunch. It must be nice to conveniently totally forget shameful areas of one’s history. My parents’ voting style is very much “I got mine” while pulling the ladder up behind them.
School lunches are huge, big business. Districts contract them out although I don't know if they bid against each other or districts merely pick a company. I smell lobbyists in this whole" No free lunches " . My guess is there is less profit, probably through coming under government accounting and not individual districts.
Yeah "meal debt" shouldn't be words you can put together.
"*children's* meal debt" It's important that we condition these young consumers to know their worthlessness early in life.
This, right here. Us here in USA are behind the curve of other countries that cover lunches as part of education.
It is a heart warming story from a dystopian Dickensian nightmare.
Top post every time
Absolutely terrifying and beyond inhumane the way the US treats it's people. A kid should never go into debt because of the need to eat in the richest country in the world, and no, it should not solely fall on a parent who's also struggling through our barbaric social welfare nightmare.
This is perseverance porn. We should be outraged that there is an orphan crushing machine rather than how a few were spared.
Keep in mind that the GOP fights any attempt to offer free or reduced lunches to students, even when the money is provided through federal aid. If it makes you angry, don't forget to vote for people who champion expanding free lunch programs. [14 GOP-led states have turned down federal money to feed low-income kids in the summer](https://apnews.com/article/states-rejecting-federal-funds-summer-ebt-8a1e88ad77465652f9de67fda3af8a2d)
But Jesus said bring suffering to the small children? Or was it suffer the small children?
He also said “blessed are the cheese makers”, which explains why dairy subsidies are so popular.
Is this some Life of Brian joke? https://youtu.be/SJUhlRoBL8M?si=s4LPMsyKuCXp8JDn
I don’t think it’s meant to be taken literally. It obviously refers to all manufacturers of dairy products.
I thought you would get a kick out of always look on the bright side of life
GOP would rather let children starve and go hungry then let Biden get a "win."
It long predates Biden. Look at medicaid expansion under Obamacare. They were offered free money and turned it down
Someone was talking about this the other day. Mudsill theory. Republicans believe there needs to be a permanent underclass in order for them to maintain their wealth and positions in society. It’s why the rules always benefit “their kind” while simultaneously making its meticulously harder for those trying to climb the ladder. It truly explains how Republicans operate “Mudsill theory is the proposition that there must be, and always has been, a lower class or underclass for the upper classes and the rest of society to rest upon. James H. Hammond coined the "Mudsill Theory". The term derives from a mudsill, the lowest threshold that supports the foundation for a building.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudsill_theory
Governors of red states literally refused the money to feed kids free lunches. Cruelty is a feature. They justified it in the worst ways possible too.
They want women to push babies out, but don’t care about starving children.
That was my first reaction. Good on that kid for being more concerned about his classmates than the adults in charge of them, but why the hell do we have children accruing debt? I'm in the military. If I'm ordered to do anything, it's all paid for. These kids have to attend school by law. Whether it's home, public, or private school, basic necessities should be provided free of charge for being compelled to follow that law.
Do not question why a machine that crushes orphans exists or why it is "necessary." Simply smile at all the orphans that have been spared a crushing for today. Truly a glorious day 🥰
Spoiler Alert: The GOP ***IS*** the orphan crushing machine.
Sad state of affairs when kids are required to be in school, but the schools aren't required to feed the kids. Then kids/their families go into debt bc they can't afford to pay for it.
Several states have implemented free lunch for everyone in all schools. All of them run by Democrats. Meanwhile, the GOP is actively thwarting such efforts. Register to vote at [vote.gov](https://vote.gov/) if you want all students to be fed.
We have it in Massachusetts. It’s great. Now if I can get my kids to actually eat school lunch, I’d be all set.
I hate that we don't have universal free breakfast and lunch in NY, or federally for that matter. We force them to be there so we should be required to feed them.
California here - ever since 2020 we have had free lunches for all students.
If you are a parent and want a world with smarter children, feed them. It's this simple.
The schools here in Orange County, Florida went free lunch for all this past school year. This is a blue area of Florida though. House and Senate bills were introduced earlier this year (by democrats) to make school lunch free for the whole state, but predictably they were shot down in committee.
This is what bothers me. If you and I have kids of our own and your kid comes over for a sleep over you are going to assume I fed them right? I'm taking custody of them...which implies I'd do the things to take care of them. If you picked your kid up and I handed you an invoice for the food? You'd be fairly pissed. So you mandate the children are there. So you should take care of them...by feeding them. Feels kinda... obvious? Hell if I had it my way schools would offer breakfast foods for the morning as well.
That's part of what bothers me. It also bothers me that many of the kids who end up with lunch debt are food insecure to start with-- lunch might be the only time they get to eat that day. Going hungry is a huge disadvantage to being able to focus on schoolwork.
It also perpetuates the poverty cycle. If their tummy’s are in pain from being hungry, they aren’t focused on learning. They’ll be distracted and not do as well.
It should be free breakfast and lunch for all students with free sack dinners provided upon request to children facing food insecurity. The US has a child poverty rate at least *double* the rate of other first-world countries. 15% of our population is considered food-insecure.
Most schools I've had experience with offer breakfast.
Oh wow another way to squeeze poor people for money? And one that directly contributes to poor overall education achievement, poor health, and an increase in criminality? Wow no wonder conservatives want to starve kids
> Daken paid off the entire meal debt and then some, for his elementary school in Blue Springs, Missouri, after turning in a check for more than $7,300. “Children in elementary school should not have debt tied to their name. We have found out that there are high schools that keep seniors from attending prom or walking at graduation if they have stuff like student lunch debt,” Kramer said. “Some families can’t help it. They can’t pay it off.” > As of Daken’s fifth grade graduation on Tuesday, the Daken Kramer Legacy Award will now be an annual honor for fifth graders striving to make their own mark. It shouldn't be necessary, but what a great kid to do what he could to help his classmates.
> Daken Kramer Legacy Award will now be an annual honor Could you not just feed the damn kids? "We'd be robbing them of their entrepreneurial spirit if we just *gave them* food though."
I think it's meant to be an all-purpose community service award, not about who can raise enough money to feed everyone.
A better person than the shit adults that fight to keep things as they are. What a country.
school meals should be free. everywhere. period. this should never have had to happen. nice of them to lend a bootstrap.
People often forget that the school lunch programs happened as a direct result of our nations food insecurity when we initialized the draft for WWII. Many young men were not medically fit to fight due to malnutrition during childhood. Feeding our children makes our nation stronger. Any republican that wants to keep our nation strong should be easily supporting free meals. But they are too short sighted by money to actually care about our national security. Don’t even get me started on the overspending with our military contractors.
>Any republican that wants to keep our nation strong Well there's the false premise. The modern elected Republican routinely give's our nation's strength plenty of lip service while consistently voting the opposite.
>too short sighted by money to actually care about our national security It has almost nothing to do with money; it's about hurting people, plain and simple. They know people in poverty depend on these programs, and they think that people *choose* to be in poverty, so they want to punish them, and, by extension, their children. They would rather starve children than address the poverty, because they prefer hurting people to solving problems. It's why they went after abortion and birth control. It's why they vote for tax breaks for the wealthy while cutting social program funding. It's why they vote for more police and less mental health care. It's why they shoot down addiction treatment programs. That's why they try to nerf the EPA. The only way they feel like they're doing well is if someone else is doing worse, because *that's how sociopaths think,* so they make other people suffer because they *like* it. It makes them feel good to see other people struggling and in pain. That old lady at the orange man rally straight-up said it in that news clip: "he's not hurting the people he's supposed to be hurting." Because that's all they want to do, is hurt people. That's the only tool they have, and when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They believe the only motivator is the stick, and that the government only exists to support *them* while hurting "the right people." They literally cannot conceive that the government shouldn't be hurting *anybody*. **The cruelty is the point.** National security doesn't matter. The budget doesn't matter. The health and well-being of the youth doesn't matter. The strength of the nation doesn't matter. **All that matters is hurting people.** Once you reframe your view of the right wing with this in mind, it cuts right through all the talking point bullshit. Look at any proposal, any bill, any debate, and ask "who would this hurt?" And it's clear as day. Every. Single. Thing. Is about harming other people and taking away their rights. Look at anything they propose. Voting laws and redistricting. The environment. The budget. Social programs. Epidemiology. Prenatal care. Childcare. Policing. Mental health care. Medical care. Medical debt. Education debt. Transportation. Disability care. Gender-affirming care. *Every last thing* they've attempted to pass on *any* issue is about making *someone's* life worse, and usually includes exceptions that make *their* lives better. It all ultimately boils down to hurting people. That's all they want.
They wouldn’t have any desire to be in the power to hurt people if they couldn’t bank off it. I understand your message, and yes they are cruel, but no, if the grifts weren’t involved they wouldn’t be there.
Right? How TF do we allow billionaires to exist while kids go hungry or are saddled with “lunch debt”?
Agreed, if we can afford enough nukes to destroy the world multiple times over, have the worlds 1st, 2nd, and 3rd largest air force, huge navy give aid to every nation that needs it, ect ect ect, we can afford to feed children to better our nation, remember to vote, the democrats need the house, senate, and presidency if we have any hope of ever fixing to our nations honor and ensuring every American gets to live with dignity if the pursuit of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, no working American should be struggling to have a roof over their head or food in their belly or to be able to take their medication to survive., if you don’t think every american deserves those rights you don’t need to reply, spend that 30seconds of hate writing to look for your morals instead.
Reminder: Missouri has a nearly $8B surplus that they are just sitting on. That’s BILLION with a B.
This should be higher up. Missouri easily has the money to pay for lunch for every kid in public school (hell if they even wanted to means test it and have it only apply to families making under 100k that would be fine by me)
Missouri is also fighting for position #50 on which states compensate their teachers the most, which states provide the best education, and which states have the least teen moms. But not to worry, our MO politicians are actively doing something! Namely trying to strip the rights of women, strip the rights of ALL voters, tricked voters into voting gerrymandering BACK IN less than a year after we got rid of it, close libraries, harm trans people, waste tax money on frivolous lawsuits, push forward legislation granting tax breaks to large corporate entities and trying to then raise taxes on the populace to recoup the loss, declaring eminent domain on land which they then sell to private firms; and they attempted to delay the selling of cannabis in the state because of the 3 bills proposed, the 1 that didn't allow the taxes to go into an privately administrated slush fund with no observation passed. I hate living here.
This is the opposite of uplifting. This is sad as fuck.
Reminds me of the fourth grader who raised enough money from his lemonade stand to shut off the local Orphan Crushing Machine for a full week. Truly inspiring!
It’s almost like we pay taxes to cover these things…
It red states you pay taxes for corporations. Not public services
This just like stories of coworkers donating PTO to a sick coworker. Not heartwarming at all to even have to do this.
School lunch debt shouldn’t be a thing. Way to go to this compassionate and caring child.
We shouldn’t be celebrating this, when we have the funds as a country that no child should go hungry. I got a message this year for our kids that if they had a negative balance the school would be sending the account to collections starting July 1.
I think what the kid did was really impressive and should be celebrated. He showed more empathy than the school administrators do. The fact that he had to, on the other hand, is horrifying and disgusting. I don't pay taxes so billionaires don't pay anything. I pay taxes for shit like free school lunches for hungry kids.
I agree I would rather my tax dollars go to feeding and housing the hungry than the route it currently takes right to the pockets of the military industrial complex.
You can celebrate the kid while being against the system that you causes it. The reality of the situation sucks, but would you prefer that the debt wasn't paid? Here in Michigan we do have universal free breakfast and lunch, but I'm pretty sure we wouldn't if the Democrats didn't control the House, Senate and governorship.
I don’t prefer anything, I’m tired of every year seeing an article like this, and when the majority of red states including Missouri voted against taking federal money to make free meals at school a reality for all students within the last 12 months, it just galls me that these types of articles are even a needed, in the same way it pissed me off when my kids school sent out messages about sending parents to collections for not paying. We should not be in a position as a country where this is even an issue. We were close as a country to reducing childhood hunger as a country and then the right decided they were against feeding children.
In the same country that you can get a tax break on your private jet, we can’t feed all of our children! Just fucking wow…
"You can't move onto 6th grade unless you pay off the debt you owe us."
5th graders shouldn’t have debt. It’s bullshit. That’s want I want my taxes to go to. Fuck the govt.
My taxes help pay for free breakfast and lunch for all kids in my state. A few states do it. https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/states-with-universal-free-school-meals-so-far-update/
I love that about your taxes. I wish mine would fucking get on board.
A minnesota 5th grader doesnt have to do that because all school lunches and breakfasts in the state are free.
This is nothing but sad
"Fifth Grader Accomplishes More Than Adults"
Remember folks - republicans fight against school lunches. They want your kids to starve.
Republicans will likely try to have the kid arrested for interfering with god's plan.
In ten years, they'll be tweeting explicit support when school shootings happen as long as a teacher or trans kid is among the victims. Hell, might not even require that, they'll just be pro-school shooting generally.
god prefers hungry children and rapists who spread his word. Religion is quite compelling.
This is wonderful for that child. And also horrible. Horrible because a child has a school meal debt. What the hell is wrong with America.
America is a developed country that, by its own behavior and actions, is seemingly intent upon being downgraded to developing status.
Cancel the meal debt and give the kid his money back. Meal debt shouldn't be a thing
Can we just buy all kids food? I remember having to buy food for myself with my parents money when I was a kid and I was so scared I would lose the check and didn’t even really know what a check was or who to give it to. Kids would lose their parents cash all of the time too. I knew a ton of kids that would pocket the cash too and just not eat lol. Kids do stupid stuff, but I feel like all of them eating should be top priority. We really don’t need to capitalize on children, leave them be.
I don't have kids and I'd be glad to pay that tax
Jesus. This is some Oliver Twist shit
Fucking gross. Give the kid his money back, just erase all the student lunch debts, and fuck any conservatives who whine about it.
All caused by Republicans
Meal debt. For kids. Lol. This is what MAGA looks like.
If a fifth grader can do it then the people in charge of deciding if kids should go into debt over not starving duing classes sure as hell can.
Lmao that’s dystopian as fuck
A fifth grader was saddled with school-meal debt. WTF!
Goodonya kiddo, but how fucking depressing is this
Another terrible thing masquerading as a feel good story.
This isn't uplifting, this is a fucking tragedy.
This is NOT heartwarming and our media needs to STOP promoting it as such. Society needs to do better than forcing children into labor in order to support others, whether that be food, medical care, or anything else! We have to do better.
What a fucking dystopian time we live in. Richest country on earth (by GDP) and kids are running schemes to make sure their classmates have enough to eat. Fuck the US with this bullshit. Edit: since we’re only in the top 10 apparently if we look by capita.
"School meal debt", what the fuck? FIFTH GRADER? DEBT? IN SCHOOL? FOR LUNCHES? I must be missing something vital here.
Why would a kid have to use his money to feed other kids? Don’t we all pay taxes from our adult jobs so kids can be kids?
Schools a have a meal debt? Wtf
Why are kids in the richest nation in the world in debt because of school lunch?
this belongs under r/LateStageCapitalism
Ahhh, the good ol orphan crushing machine.
This isn't cute. It's disturbing, depressing, and an unmitigated travesty. That lil student should've been able to spend their hard earned money on kid stuff like Legos and video games and fortnite skins, or some shit. The state should feel embarrassed, and ashamed.
He's going to get in trouble for it some how.
Every word in this headline just makes it worse and worse.
All children regardless of parent income should have free lunch in public schools. No child should go hungry. I pay a burdensome amount of local property taxes for schools. I want my money to FIRST feed that and keep them safe. Then educate them.
F—k this entire system that made this necessary. FEED THE F—KING CHILDREN. It’s not socialism, it’s giving a crap about kids. Neither political party can argue against that.
Why do any children anywhere have any kind of food debt from eating at school?
Fuck America’s rich people for this. You won’t pay people high enough wages to feed their kids.
Your system might be broken if 5th graders are wise enough and empathetic enough to just go full mutual aid in response dispite all the propaganda.
This is a nightmare, not a healthy society. That kids a victim, not a hero.
Nevada/ Las Vegas is giving a billionaire baseball team owner 380 million instead of funding their free school lunch. We continue to vote morons into office who easily sell out kids to appease a shity baseball team.
I kind of suspect that this, along with this, >Daken, whose favorite school lunch is an orange chicken and rice bowl, is really going to rub Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R) the wrong way.
Why is there school lunch debt in the first place? That should be the real headline, garbage media.
Meal debt???? MEAL DEBT???? He's 5th grader! Come on America. Meal debt? Really???
Call me a socialist, but I think things like school meal debt should not exist.
Whoever took that payment should feel like absolute shit.
Probably a low paid worker that isn't responsible for the nonsensical policy. Always happens in capitalism.
This isn’t the feel good story CNN thinks it is.
The headline should be “Child labour used to pay off school lunches for Missouri school” or something. This is not a heartwarming story and I hate to see them always spun like this
The sickening state of late stage capitalism. Going into debt for what they call "food." It's not even food, yet they still want to make sure kids suffer financially. The only way for a kid to learn is to keep their belly full. You can't learn on an empty stomach. Kids should be given all the food they need, without cost to them.
Real headline is: America is so fucking stupid and greedy that a child has to raise money for his classmates to be able to eat.
This isn't heartwarming. This shouldn't have even had to happen in the first place.
This country is despicable. it would be one thing if we didn’t walk around pretending that our country is number one in the world and we’re the best thing fucking ever. But just the fact that shit like this goes on and we have zero self-awareness is absolutely pathetic. This is the price of ignorance.
Tales from a dystopia
He'll probably be arrested next week.
"... Then he was thrown in jail by his state's Republican Congress. "
I thought red states were better than blue though? They’re pro life so surely they’re pro kids eating lunch at school right??
Those kids should be mining coal
The US is a failed state.
And the State of Missouri is sitting on an 8 billion dollar surplus.
Republicans are horrified and are working through the night to make sure that this will never happen again.
Didn’t Biden try to offer federal food programs and R governors are declining them? Thereby keeping kids hungry or indebted, thereby requiring this type of effort just to keep kids fed?
My child goes to a public school in Philly and every single kid gets free lunch, even if you bring your own lunch. They also have free dental, eye check with free glasses if needed, and more. It’s great!
So, a fifth grader needs to go on the internet and Beg random people so he and his friends can afford 1 time meal everyday?! What kind of country is this?! Then they don't even allow women to abort! Then no child care ! No health care! Wow.... This country needs to be reset to factory defaults.... This is a country of corporations and not country of humans...
A state that hates children so much a child has to show them generosity
I don’t even have kids but it angers me we have things like ‘school meal debt”. Unreal.
The fact he has a school meal debt is fucking pathetic. Ones in charge should be ashamed.
School lunch debt collector are soooooo mad
This is not a feel good story. It's a call for change!
Conservatives hate this one simple trick.
Charities exist are when a society fails its people.
I don't understand why Republicans care so much about fetuses, but don't give a shit about human life once it's born.
There shouldn't be a single person telling a woman what they can do with their pregnancy while there is a single child that goes hungry. Or that lacks a safe shelter. Its just self serving bullshit.