671–680 of 918 posts
Many kids would opt to bring in a pack of ramen, crush it up, add the seasoning and eat it dry instead. Many (myself included) just wouldn’t eat to avoid the humiliation.
But, hey, at least we had that most expensive high school football stadium in the world for a time!
DISD ( Dallas Independent School District ) has had free lunch for as long as i can remember. Free breakfast too. On school holidays you can still goto school and get a meal. I want to say they do this on weekends too. Granted, MREs from an Army surplus store are better than school lunch but it is free. I don't think my kids have ever eaten a school lunch. During COVID my wife and I got a EBT (food stamps) card in th…
> I don't think my kids have ever eaten a school lunch. I am confused why it was important to include this sentence in your post. Overall: Excellent. This sentence: Not required. Is this a flex?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You swept the issue of fraudulent social security disability claims under the rug. It seems apparent to me that your attitude toward individual level accountability is one that denies agency of the individual and ascribes their moral failures as a result of societal-level problems. After all, there is no moral hazard when individuals have no moral agency to begin with.
I posted about it in a different little branch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43903848 TL;DR: the average disability recipient age has hovered ~50 (stddev 1.54 years) since 1960. The theory of "baby boomers are a huge generation, they got old and US health care sucks ass" is far more parsimonious than your theory of individual accountability, which has to explain why every generation suddenly becomes fraudulen…
The example in linked materials of 1 in 4 adults in Hale County receiving disability payments is a clear example of a situation where individuals and healthcare providers have both contributed to widescale fraud. This is an obvious case where moral hazard is present and you continue to deny it.
I personally reflect back to realize that I started requesting parents / personally making sandwiches ~3rd grade because I was tired of flavorless and relatively unhealthy and repeated cafeteria style food at high price. (and also coming to a similar conclusion regarding the Cafeteria when at University).
South Korea started dabbling in free school lunches around 2001 - when a few schools started it. It gained momentum, and then it became a huge debate in 2011, when Seoul's mayor somehow decided he hated free lunches so much that he arranged a referendum, and said he would quit if people didn't agree with him on the matter. He did quit. Fast forward to 2025, and now free school lunches are nearly ubiquitous. Once peop…
>But you don't have to pay for a gratuitous system of bureaucracy This is what's frustrating about America. There is so much bureaucracy that exists only to pay for itself, and I suppose, provide a few jobs, but you're an unreasonable socialist if you point out that it'd be cheaper just to not keep track of who needs to pay and give food to everyone for free instead.
No, it exists to prevent people from receiving public services, both by its direct operation and indirectly by making the service more painful to use so people who would be entitled to use it nevertheless avoid it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Giving out free food might make people feel entitled and less likely to learn to be self sufficient To be clear, the subject is still children, right? Refusing to feed children to "teach" them self-sufficiency is, IMO, right up there with a non-ironic "the children yearn for the mines". What could a self-sufficient 6th-grader even do for money? Steal baby food and small electronics from Target for fencing?
Well, I learnt a new Americanism today. Fence, verb, meaning to shift stolen goods. Upon first read I thought they would be sword fighting with stolen bluetooth speakers.
Does it not also have that meaning in commonwealth countries?
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…
While I wholeheartedly agree that no child should ever go hungry and school lunches should be free (from a EU country, this isn’t even a thing here), if you call people subhuman, we can't be friends, nor acquaintances.
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.
A decent portion of that goes towards your retirement though right? It's not like it's just vague government services you don't benefit from.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I literally googled "what do people buy with ebt" and got a list [0] with actual information that seems very reasonable. If you're gonna participate in the conversation, please do better than this. [0]: https://epicforamerica.org/social-programs/here-is-what-food...
> As a result, data show that sizable portions of SNAP dollars purchase nonnutritious foods, such as sugary beverages and ultra-processed foods, which can lead to poor health.”
Correct me if I'm wrong, but "sugary beverages" and "processed foods" are, in fact, food? Items which contain calories that are vital to sustaining life? And food stamps are intended to buy food with?
I'm not sure what point this link is trying to make.