Republicans block child nutrition bill

reply to post by SankeySugar


I'm not suggesting that this society allow children to starve and nor am I suggesting that the society not provide short-term assistance for folks who find themselves in hard times.

What I am suggesting is that people are responsible for their own lives and the lives of their dependants. If someone is so irresponsible that they can not properly feed their kids they are likely being irresponsible in other facets of child rearing. A logical thing to consider since feeding your kids is the most basic of parental reponsibilites. At a minimum, any child who is receiving school lunches should have their home visited by DHS.

Do these folks who are getting free meals in schools have a TV? They shouldn't. Do they have a computer? They shouldn't. Food is an absolute basic necessity and parents should not do a single thing prior to being able to properly feed them.

Kids who are in family situations like these should be removed from the home. Where should they go? To effectively run state homes where they can get access to quality food, a safe environment, educational assistance, access to resources.

Here is the challenge with these types of programs - its the marginal dollar.

Joe and his family with wife and two kids makes $20,000/year and qualify for food free lunches.

Mary and her family with husband and two kids makes $20,001/year and does not qualify for free lunches because the cutoff is $20,000.

Lets assume that the free lunches have a dollar equalivent value of $100/month.

That means that Joe has $1,199 more in actual cash/cash equivalents than Mary, which is over 5% of her income. Mary is poorer than Joe because she makes 1$ more a year and is responsible enough to properly feed her kids.

That's destructive for not only Mary, but society as well.

Make the cut-off at any number you want. $30K, $50K, makes no difference at some point a marginal dollar is earned which disallows the more productive from receiving the subsidy and actually penalizes them relative to the person making a $ less.

Get off your high horse with all of the "folks who don't support these programs are heartless and want to starve kids" rubbish. The fact of the matter is that the only thing that has happened with these programs is that they have gotten larger, the income levels for qualification have gotten increasingly higher. The answer is seeking solutions to not have any free meals in schools, not how to better fund them.

reply to post by buni11687


You can't buy alcohol and smokes with food stamps. You can only buy food with foodstamps.

Side note: maybe I'm just a sensitive person, but what is wrong with feeding kids who would otherwise go hungry? Millions spent on a war, but a kids stomach will growl all day and possibly all night?? Something is not right with this picture! These are children who won't have a meal during the school day! There has to be something that can be done besides voting no. If need be, I'm sure I can send extra pbj sandwiches to school with my son to help out....Damn What's happening to us as a whole?

reply to post by skindoc

There is nothing wrong with being sensitive or charitable. I'm sure that you are a very charitable person, but do you give to the point of your own demise? How can we as a country do the same We are broke living on borrowed money. Yet the word Billion ( little heard in the past) is bantered about daly. This issue is more about what Michele dictates that kids should eat that the number of kids fed.

To show just how caring the Obamas really are here is a link to their past charitable deductions. only enough to ease their own tax burdens, but they are very generous now aren't they. //taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/03/obama-releases.html

reply to post by skindoc


You can certainly sell foodstamps for cash and buy booze and smokes with the cash.

There have recently been a rash of stories about welfare ATM cards being used at casinos, cruise ships and strip clubs. California has recently passed laws where these locations can no longer take the welfare card.

All of this talk and much of this thread is too emotional and the "feed the children" supporters neglecting the larger picture and that is how to eliminate the dependency state. I'm all for providing free lunches for a period when a family falls into hard times, but it can not be a lifelong stream of cash. Why are folks so hesitant to ask why are these folks unable to feed their children? Why are folks so hesitant to suggest that people have no right to have children they can not afford to feed and provide for. You have no right to have kids you can not feed. To the extent that you were so irresponsible to have them when you had every reasonable expectation that you would be unable to feed them, such as having a second child when the first is receiving free lunches, both of those children should be removed from the home. Their parents are obviously too irresponsible to properly and competently raise their children.

The cycle only perpetuates itself. It becomes normal for people to think "Oh yea, I don't need to by stuff for lunches for the kids, they get free lunch at school". Its not "I'm ashamed that I can not properly feed my kids and have to rely on the government to feed them lunch. I need to get a job, work a bit of O/T, get a better job, etc". How about for an older kid, making him/her get an after school job to help support their family?

If you want to provide free lunches, fine. Come up with a program that will enable us to eliminate 90% of them in 2 years by driving more responsible behavior into these poorly run homes and then I'm game. All that happens now is that the levels of qualification just get higher and its not just lunches anymore. Its breakfast and dinner in some places.

As far as what it costs? A large jar of both generic peanut butter and jelly and a loaf of bread would cost these parents no more than $2 a day to provide lunch. Are you suggesting that these folks can't afford $2/day to do something so fundamental as feed their kids? I don't buy it. Turn the heat down a bit. Don't use AC, get rid of the cable, get rid of the internet, buy yourself fewer things, darn socks and patch jeans with holes in them rather than buy new ones.

I guess all I expect is what my parents did to feed and clothe me. They made sacrifices, trade-offs and they made it work.

If there was no free lunch the parents would find a way to feed these kids. The reason is that there is demand for free lunch is because there is a free lunch.

The easiest way to destroy the value of something is to give it away for free. Are we destroying the value of food by providing free lunches? No, we are doing far worse than that. We are destroying the value of responsibility and self reliance. We are destroying motivation, judgement and initiative. We are taking potentially valuable contributing members of society and turning them into dependents.

It is not government's job to feed children.

That is the job of parents and farmers.

A whole lot of ugliness on this thread.

A good reminder why I visit ATS less and less.

For many impovershed kids in the USA...The meal they get at school is thier only meal.

For that reason the nuttritional content of that meal is paramount. Diet effects everything from hyper activity to ADD and starving kids have a hard time learning and have little hope of escaping thier situation.

Even if we were to blindly adopt the cold-hearted, ignorant view that these childrens parents are failing to contribute and earn money in our capitalistic system because they are lazy rather than just unlucky and unemployed.

...The impovershed state of these childrens parents are NOT the childrens fault and the attitude that they should suffer for having struggling parents is just plain sick.

We are not a third world african nation yet...starving and malnutritioned children should not be a component of any political platform.

This is it what happened..
The GOP recieves money from the food manufacturers lobby.
The food manufacturers in the usa make huge profits from selling cheap foods to schools...foods made with high doses of sugar and salt and just the minimum of actual nutritional content.
The GOP will not pass this bill because lobbyists have asked them not to.

Money over the welfare of our kids.

We are reaching a new low in this country every day.

Last week the European Union joined Canada in banning BPH from plastics in baby bottles and formula's as research has shown it contributed to hormone imbalances in infants.

The GOP slammed the bill that was in congress two weeks ago at the behest of the Plastic Manufacturers of America. A bill that was set to ban BHP in baby bottles in America was dropped.

Money is the new GOD...and money will let kids starve or get sick if it is profitable.

This is what we see this week...

Republicans block child nutrition bill
news.yahoo.com...

But this was the news last year..that no one really noticed
Updated: Video Exposing Food Lobbyists (no one covered this)
www.dailykos.com...



1/3 of kids in school are obese...1/4 have signs of early stage diabetes and heart disease..
French Fries and Ketchup...constitute 46% of "fruits and vegatables" that teens eat each year.
A School lunch has an average of 1350 calories...

But what the hell...ef the children...there is money to be made...let them either starve or eat the crap we can make big profits on. We will take them overweight and unhealthy...or nutritionally starved...as longa s we can make money...

reply to post by maybereal11

1/3 of kids in school are obese...1/4 have signs of early stage diabetes and heart disease..
French Fries and Ketchup...constitute 46% of "fruits and vegatables" that teens eat each year.
A School lunch has an average of 1350 calories..

Sounds like the last thing government should be doing is buying kids food.

reply to post by nocents


I totally agree with you in regards to the lunch dictators! My son just will not eat anything the school serves, so I pack him a lunch everyday. I don't mind doing it and I still remain the authority on what he eats.

Originally posted by BrainGarden
These bills are NEVER what they appear to be.
there is something else to this story,
watch and see.They probably want to feed them
soy/cyanide burgers or want to put in armed guards
with tazers, for the children who want to opt. out.
come on, you know how they work by now, right ?

Peace.

edit on 2-12-2010 by BrainGarden because: edit of course

I agree, the happier the title of the bill the more evil it seems to be. lol. i.e. "The Patriot Act".

reply to post by dolphinfan


Omg I couldn't stop laughing at your post! You are certainly spot on in regards to people selling food stamps. I don't think this is the majority but it certainly happens. I don't have a permanent solution to this problem, but I do know that without programs like these a lot of families would be in dire straights. I feel that you can't make people responsible individuals, sometimes there are factors outside of being responsible that keep people poor.

What will these hungry kids learn during school if they can't focus. Most of them will be angry bullies, taking my kids lunch. Those bullies then grow up to be what responsible, productive citizens?

I can't speak for what others spend on school lunches, but I tend to spend a small fortune per week. It would actually cost less if my child ate a school lunch.

I just know that there can be other things cut so these kids can eat. I feel that is the responsible thing to do. To no fault of their own they are poor.

Originally posted by buni11687
reply to post by dolphinfan

 

I would support a modification of the food stamp program, where stuff like smokes and alcohol are not allowed to be purchased with food stamps.

It's already unlawful to but cigs or alcohol with food stamps or for the store to sell them See, for example www.floridagovernmentonline.com... . But the greedy small business darlings of the Tea Party stores sell them anyway.

Originally posted by 4nsicphd

Originally posted by buni11687
reply to post by dolphinfan

 

I would support a modification of the food stamp program, where stuff like smokes and alcohol are not allowed to be purchased with food stamps.

It's already unlawful to but cigs or alcohol with food stamps or for the store to sell them See, for example www.floridagovernmentonline.com... . But the greedy small business darlings of the Tea Party stores sell them anyway.

Its also unlawful to buy pot, sell raw milk, or have sex with goats.

Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by maybereal11

 

1/3 of kids in school are obese...1/4 have signs of early stage diabetes and heart disease..
French Fries and Ketchup...constitute 46% of "fruits and vegatables" that teens eat each year.
A School lunch has an average of 1350 calories..

Sounds like the last thing government should be doing is buying kids food.

Kids are obese because they eat high calorie, high sodium foods without any nutritional content.

These foods are very cheap to manufacture and carry a high profit margin.

They represent a huge profit to food manufacturers who sell these foods to schools in massive bulk.

Kids who eat these foods regularly will become obese while being nutritionally starved...it leads to Diabetes, Heart Disease and problems like ADD.

Food is not all the same....that's not a complicated concept is it? It just requires eyes and and nose..not a whole lot of that "thinking" stuff that liberal elites do.

A half pound of fried cheese sticks does not equal a half pound of carrots and apples.

Ever see the movie Super-Size it?

It is really easy to get stars on threads like this.

"OMG! So many heartless people! Of course we have to feed the starving children! We spend all of this money on wars, but we can't feed the children! You disgust me!!!"
(Star star star star.....)

Unfortunately for us, we may never get it. No matter how much we read about welfare abuse, immigration violations and abuse, parents and kids fighting over cheap imports while refusing to even learn where their country is on a map of the world, we cling to this notion that we must continue to feed the beast that got us here.
Welfare encourages what? More welfare.
People don't want to have to work... h*ll if you promise to house and feed me maybe I won't either. If a child comes to school starving, someone needs to go check out the homestead. Take a drug test kit and some handcuffs.
Schools are to teach children, but I don't see everyone screaming because the kids are coming out of school with no learning whatsoever. And most of these kids are probably carrying an expensive phone to let their friends know how badly they are being treated.
Get real.

reply to post by mnemeth1


We all know that there are a lot of irresponsible parents who are hooked on Meth and put their kids on the backburner. Their child's diet consists of an unhealthy, happy meal from McD's or box meal from Taco Bell. The truth is, is that Tweakers don't think clearly and they don't take into consideration the long term effects of their day-to-day decisions.
I've seen all of this stuff first hand. My biological mother does Meth every once in a while... I have seen how her and her friends treat their kids. I fear my little 6 year old brother is going to have health complications when he gets older.
I believe that the government has a responsibilty to look after its young people and needs to make sure every child has a better life. That is what the American Dream is about - A better future for ALL children... Not just the rich kids who can afford healthy meals.

Respectfully,
UnaChispa

Can somebody tell me when and why it was school lunches got bad in the first place?

Why are the kids fat now and they werent fat 20, 30 or 60+ years ago?

What changed? Who changed it? Did somebody go off and create a problem so they could swoop in with a solution? If we know what changed is this approach really the best solution to get back what once was?

After reading the text of the bill, as noble as it may seem, however, it was a poorly written bill, that had a lot of flaws in it. The first part that should catch the attention, is where, if it had been passed, would prevent it from being challenged in court. No law should be prevented from being challenged in court, no matter what it is. The people should, ultimately have a say in and a means to redress a law, that they may find unfair. There are a few questionable items in this bill, that would have no bearing on the actual bill. These range to the qualifications to Medicare and medicade. There is a loophole, where people who should not qualify for free and reduce lunches, and food stamps, can thus be qualified for such. It covers into WIC programs. Would discriminate against some people based on where they would live. Punish schools who did not take the program. It would force schools to purchase more expensive foods, such as organic foods. Last time the price was checked on organic foods, it was much more expensive than its counterparts. Create a dangerous situation for people who would be able to benefit from this program, by allowing for the purchasing of non certified and safe foods. And would ultimately end up taking some schools out of the federal programs that already receive such. It would allow for the government to get more involved in the home, than it should. Already there is a mass push to get children healthy, to the point where students, whose parents send them to school with cookies or soda, are being suspended and prevented from the parents making the decision on what their child may eat. This is neither correct, nor should it happen. There are programs to assist the those children in the public school systems to get a free breakfast, lunch and after school snacks, however the guidelines need to be followed, and many people fail to realize, that it is based off of the attendance and in the number of applications that the food service department has received and is qualified for such.
The federal government is getting way too out of line with intruding in the publics well being, that they have often forgotten the one thing: They can not legislate human behavior.

Children of these United States, need to eat! You Repubican pricks. The end. reply to post by buni11687

I graduated around two years ago. The inner -city school I went to had free lunches for everyone. When I went to a suburban school only the "low income" students got a free lunch. But what about me? My mom was always broke and I had no lunch money. But she made too much money to qualify me.

I think its a joke that my school removed certain candy from the vending machines but kept others. Also, ALL the "real" food you could buy was processed garbage. I guess most people don't realize that processed food is bad for you....not just sweet foods

reply to post by buni11687

People complain about obesity in today's children and believe me after lifting hundreds of them a year I am one of them. But no one mentions all the soda machines and candy machines in the schools. I was appalled when I found out the local school had those machines feeding kids junk food.

Second. I do not agree with the "healthy food" idea of the US government. If you eat the food pyramid you end up LOOKING like the food pyramid. All that pasta and bread puts on the pounds. Again I see it in customers every year.

So no I do not support this bill, not without reading every single word.

Just look at Obamacare with it's 1099 rule designed to kill lots of struggling small businesses.

As far as I am concerned Congress is a bunch of Corporate puppets trying to pull the wool over our eyes unless proven otherwise, beyond a shadow of doubt. Even then I would suspect them of planning to slip a one liner into a future bill to turn it to a corporations advantage.