Live data from Hacker News

I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

huffpost.com

371–380 of 918 posts

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#371
post #351

As someone who experienced this first hand growing up. I consider how someone feels about free school lunch, a basic test of their humanity. If you think kids should go hungry or be embarrassed at school because of their parents finances… we can’t be friends, nor acquaintances. IMHO, you are subhuman at that point and not worth my time. My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to…

"My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to feed me." I understand this is not what is meant here... but in a sense he's right. In a normal society where everyone pay taxes and they are well spent, it should be indeed the Government that's in charge of feeding kids at school

Taxes aren't magic, you pay some money and receive some services. It's obviously possible to fund meals with tax money, but would he accept a higher tax rate to cover for it?

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff like this seems like such a dividing line to me. Like, in theory when people believe things that are morally wrong, I want to reach out to them with compassion and respect and try to gently persuade them to my side because we're all, in theory, on the same side. But if you don't want kids to be fed, I really am not sure we're actually on the same side any more and I really am not sure what to do with that.

[flagged]

> It’s not that I don’t want kids fed. It’s that I know deep in my soul that $100 will be spent per child, with $99 extracted along the way by various politicians / consultants / unions, and $1 of disgusting food will (sometimes) be provided to a child.

If you oppose any actual steps to feed kids, then you don't want the kids fed. The rest of this is just you justifying why you don't want the kids fed.

If you want the program to feed the kids to be efficient: guess what, the left wants that too, and we're really happy to work to make that happen.

But the fact is, the right is happy to simply throw out the program and let the kids starve rather than tolerate any inefficiency. And notably, that inefficiency is often created by right-wing policies which attempt to prevent anyone perceived as not deserving aid from receiving aid.

If you vote Republican because you want the government to be more efficient, you're piling on even more bullshit. The national debt consistently increases more under Republican presidents than Democratic ones[1]--the perceived austerity of conservative government is entirely nonexistent. This problem is only worse under Trump: DOGE has made things less efficient by firing and rehiring half of the workers in government without even a basic understanding of how the programs work and or could be improved[2].

> And what I like about leftists is their sympathy. What I dislike is their lack of real-world knowledge

I'm well aware these programs are inefficient, though they're certainly not 1% efficient as in your made up numbers. It's just that I'm not willing to stop helping people because it's inefficient. I'd like to make it more efficient, but it's pretty hard to make programs more efficient when people like you are constantly trying to get rid of them and defund them.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/democrats-vs-republicans-who-ha...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/03/21/doge-gove...

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we have taxes. Because we can assess how much each person can afford to pay, and then make collective decisions that can't be made by inefficient free market mechanisms.

[flagged]

That’s a big leap from the comment you are replying to.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#374

As someone from Europe, I had heard before about bankrupting ambulance rides, slavery in prisons, and food deserts. I did not expect to add “lunch money humiliation ritual” to that list. I’ll think of this next time I complain about my 50% income tax.

50% sounds manageable still. Currently paying ~65% of whatever I bill, in taxes and that hurts quite a lot. Assuming no costs to deliver, I need to bill 10K€ to net ~3,5K€. It makes exports uncompetitive with other lower taxed countries. Despite this, seeing a general practitioner can take months for issues that aren't-killing-you-right-now.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then, why stop at lunches? Why not give all children breakfast and dinner too, and buy them good clothes to wear? Indeed: Why not? Certainly a better investment than yet another round of tax cuts for billionaires.

How about this: we give all people all meals, clothes, housing, heating (all essentials) and spending money so that they can explore their interests, travel, etc?

That's how most of Europe actually works: we assist those who for whatever reason are unable to support themselves.

Granted, our systems aren't perfect either. People fall through the cracks sometimes or have to deal with inane bureaucracy. But you generally won't see large encampments of homeless citizens openly defecating on the sidewalks or school children being shamed for their parents not having lunch money.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People generally don't want the Federal government involved, thats where the consensus has been lacking. this is exhibit A of showing that these country sized states are fully capable of handling their own affairs and universal access to things, the same as the 21st century developed nations that do the same thing You and the other parties actually agree that it isn't controversial, there are many funding sources if…

Except none of that is actually true. Unconvinced? Go look at a heat map of poverty in the US and then check out which states get bulk of federal assistance dollars. Note none of those states is running a massive budget surplus. While I have you I'd like to also point out that "hrrr federal government bad" is not only tautological, as an ideology it's deeply stupid . States frequently encounter problems that require…

Please don’t respond with a fake quote; double quotation marks are for direct quotes (which are assumed to be from the parent unless otherwise attributed). If you’re going to make something up, please use single quotes, and make it clear that the parent didn’t actually say that.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#377

As someone who experienced this first hand growing up. I consider how someone feels about free school lunch, a basic test of their humanity. If you think kids should go hungry or be embarrassed at school because of their parents finances… we can’t be friends, nor acquaintances. IMHO, you are subhuman at that point and not worth my time. My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to…

It is classically American to say "I pay taxes. They should use that to solve the problem" while paying so few taxes that it could not possibly solve the problem.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then, why stop at lunches? Why not give all children breakfast and dinner too, and buy them good clothes to wear? Indeed: Why not? Certainly a better investment than yet another round of tax cuts for billionaires.

How about this: we give all people all meals, clothes, housing, heating (all essentials) and spending money so that they can explore their interests, travel, etc?

This is what humanity must aim for.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#379
post #353

As someone who experienced this first hand growing up. I consider how someone feels about free school lunch, a basic test of their humanity. If you think kids should go hungry or be embarrassed at school because of their parents finances… we can’t be friends, nor acquaintances. IMHO, you are subhuman at that point and not worth my time. My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to…

I don't know what the correct answer is. The tricky thing is, if you let anyone just choose not to pay, there will be plenty of people who are capable of paying who don't bother. In your case, it sounds like your dad was maybe capable of paying but wanted to freeload. So as long as you're going to charge for lunches, you need to have some kind of enforcement mechanism. Embarrassing the kid ideally would not be part o…

> The tricky thing is, if you let anyone just choose not to pay, there will be plenty of people who are capable of paying who don't bother.

I quite frankly don't care about that type of arguments anymore. If someone wants to be a bad person they are free to do so. I don't care, it should not stop the 95%, or more, that want to do the right thing.

We continuously make more and more convoluted rules, which are a nightmare for decent people to navigate, but which are just ignored by the assholes. I don't care about fighting the assholes for what is minor amounts, if it means overburdening good people with rules which weren't meant for them anyway.

Moving it to taxes essentially does the same thing. The assholes weasel their way out of paying their fair share, while those who want the best for society and everyone is stuck paying the full amount.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff like this seems like such a dividing line to me. Like, in theory when people believe things that are morally wrong, I want to reach out to them with compassion and respect and try to gently persuade them to my side because we're all, in theory, on the same side. But if you don't want kids to be fed, I really am not sure we're actually on the same side any more and I really am not sure what to do with that.

[flagged]

> And what I like about leftists is their sympathy. What I dislike is their lack of real-world knowledge

The problem is that leftists have more real life knowledge then far right, maga and Trump.

It was not leftists who voted for administrations that blow up deficits the most while complaining about deficits. It was leftists who were 100% correct about what conservatives plan and do. And it is not the left who pointificates about health and education ... while actively making them worst and actively slashing ways to measure how they are performing.

Post reply on HN