It Ain't Their Lunch
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <4/8>

      Lets see how many can grasp this simple truth. Regardless of how many pudgy kids the liberals can drag in front of the cameras, no matter how many verbal images of starving children they can evoke, no matter what greedy, evil scenario they can create there is one truth about school lunches. It's not their lunch.
      That is a simple fact. How many can handle it? That cheap lunch they are getting at school is not their's. Period, end of discussion.
      Everything else follows from the presumption that it is the liberal thing to do. Whenever liberals open their mouths the demonstrate they have no intellectual roots as they have denied to themselves that they are founded in Marxism. This is no exception.
      Some facts first. The largest government estimate (credible is not under discussion here) is that 20% of American children are being raised in poverty. The government estimates that 50% of all school children are receiving government subsidized school lunches.
      The poor school children need these lunches because they do not eat well at home. Right? I have heard at least a dozen variations on that from our marxist liberals. Fine, they do not eat well at home. If the liberals think the food stamp program is such a failure then lets cancel that completely. Only a liberal can try to have it both ways.
      Any objection based upon the children not eating well at home is a clear statement of the failure of the entire welfare program. The dollar value of food stamps is not dependent upon the age of the child only the number of children whether or not they are school age. And if someone is sitting around on their fat backside at home collecting welfare they certainly have the time to pack lunches for their children.
      If they do not then that is why there are hotlines for child neglect, right? Use them. Child neglect is not to be solved with a nationwide lunch program. There are more direct ways to deal with it.
      That is a little bit of sense into the subject. Lets ask why three out of five children getting these lunches do not need them? That is 50% receiving, 20% needing. Why? If the object is simply to give money away the government can draw a few million names from those who filed taxes and give each a hundred dollars.
      No matter how you look at it 60% of the lunches and thus 60% of the cost is being literally given away to the PARENTS of the children not in poverty. If the parents can afford it the children will get lunch. Any lunch given to these children is a gift to the parents.
      Lets go on to a real fantasy. Children can't learn well when they are hungry. Do you believe that? Why? Was the Depression a time of serious deterioration in academic achievement? If so, I would like to see the numbers.
      Is there any known study connecting school performance and a bag lunch from home vice a school lunch? If so I would like to see it. Some of them do not get breakfast? Fine. Lets see the different test results from morning and afternoon classes. Let us see something that supports this wild imagining.
      And NO, nothing stands to reason. It is just as easily the opposite as after a big lunch you tend to be tired even to drift off to sleep and that does not help learning either. We not have any reason to believe that hunger would cause a problem. We all know that a good lunch can cause a problem.
      And even if all of the above were in some manner proven to be true and even if public school educated liberals are right and that a 4.5% increase is a cut the simple fact is as in the first paragraph. It is not their lunch. It is not taken food from their mouths. It is not giving it to them in the first place. Nothing is being taken from them that was theirs to begin with.
      They already have parents who, either from income or welfare are providing lunch for them over half the days in the year already. If the parents don't want to pay for a school lunch and do not want to pack a bag lunch for their own children it is either their business or the business of the local child neglect people.
      If parents find it is too much of a hassle to make a bag lunch then I would have to ask them just who it was that gave them the idea having children was not a hassle. It comes with the territory.
      This program is a gift to the parents. Excuse me. Did you think when I said it was not their lunch I was referring to the children? I was referring to the parents. It is not their lunch. They have the money or the welfare and the food stamps. It is not their lunch.