Mastodawn

SkentBrott Jun 21, 2023

Badtux the Snarky Penguin

At the rural school district I last worked at, we had 1500 students, of whom 1,000 were free lunch and 500 were not. The cost of personnel (an entire department!), computers, and software for vetting students to make sure those 500 didn't get free lunch cost more than the cost of simply feeding them, already.

The GOP jihad about preventing those 500 from getting free lunch is not about taxes or expense, it's about being mean to children. #gop #antichild #school #lunch #meanness

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

As just an example, after I left the school district I went to work for the company maintaining the district's enrollment/attendance records. One of the things I wrote was the software for matching the free lunch eligibility list sent to them by the Feds against the student enrollment and school lunch enrollment records. It was not simple software and we didn't give it away to the district. That software alone probably cost them enough to have fed 100 kids for a year. #gop #meanness

Tracy Hall Jun 20, 2023

INEVITABLY, any "means-tested" benefit is FAR less expensive and FAR more efficient to simply give the benefit to everyone, and claw it back at tax time. If at all.

Urzl Jun 20, 2023

@video_manager @badtux We're not giving away Lamborghinis, we're giving children subsistence-level sustenance.

In all reality we could afford to feed all the adults too, free riders and all, without it being practical to bother auditing the program.

Murphy's Lawyer Jun 20, 2023

Why these endless papers, administers, and more?
All to guarantee there was no cheating by the poor
While for every dollar saved we spent a hundred on the chore
Of adding to the paper sea
- Leslie Fish

obscurestar Jun 20, 2023

@badtux They've always been awful. In 80s Okla. public school we filed out of class. stood in line for the lunch room (no talking) went through this very long line around the cafeteria to the wash station. Only THEN did the sack-lunch kids break off (still in order) to their table at the back. Free lunches went to the tables nearest them. After lunch period, dismissed row by row (if you ate it all) but free and sack lunches were last out, robbing them of 10min playground time for being poor.

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@obscurestar We definitely didn't do poverty shaming like that in our district. Billing parents for lunches was done separately from processing kids for lunchs so it was impossible to tell who was free lunch vs paid lunch at the lunch line, each student ID got scanned into the lunch computer and billed to the appropriate place on the back end (Feds, or parent account). That software and the process of billing parents was *not* cheap BTW.

obscurestar Jun 20, 2023

@badtux Yeah. This was late 70s early 80s in Oklahoma (a long time right-wing stronghold) public school run like a christian military school and the shaming felt pretty intentional. I was a sack-lunch kid so I was always back of the cafeteria, last to be let to go play even when my class was first in the cafeteria seating chart (which was a weekly rotation through the home rooms) No talking allowed in the lunch room of course so the poors just got shamed/punished.

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@obscurestar No talking in the lunch room? WTF?! That was insane! Even Catholic school wasn't that bad, and I say that as a survivor of several years of Catholic school!

chicating Jun 20, 2023

@badtux Somebody I talked to recently said he didn't trust the government to feed his kids and that maybe they'd make her eat them. Kinda nuts, right?

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@chicating The Federal school lunch program has been around since 1946. Thus far no parents have been eaten as part of the Federal school lunch program, regardless of what nutty conspiracy theorists think. I gotta figure that if it's been around for almost 80 years and no parents have been eaten, it ain't gonna happen, lol.

chicating Jun 20, 2023

@badtux Ha, ha...I was afraid it would read like that...the object of my verb wasn't clear...this is how rumors get started. He was afraid his daughter would be forced to eat food full of additives and whatnot. Not soylent green, though.

chicating Jun 20, 2023

@badtux his daughter eat the lunches...not really clear from what I wrote. Still, they're not *compulsory*, just there if you need 'em, right?
I did agree they needed to up their game w what was served...I mean, sure. But somehow doubt GOP objections are about getting better quality...

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@chicating A kid either goes through the lunch line or not, I'm not sure how a school would force a child to go through the lunch line. I will say that if a child neither goes through the lunch line nor eats a sack lunch, we're going to get concerned and start asking questions and if we don't get answers there's going to be a referral to child welfare -- hungry children don't do well in school and it's also a possible sign of child abuse.

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@chicating Regarding upping the game, if a child has dietary restrictions our school lunch program was always good about working around them, even to the point of creating different meals for certain children who had medical restrictions such as food allergies. This is required by Federal law and we complied with it.

chicating Jun 20, 2023

@badtux I'm sincerely glad to know about that...I did not, although you *hope* someone would do those things...

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@chicating It's actually part of the ADA, Americans with Disability Act, that school lunch programs must accomodate disabilities, and that those disabilities include medically verifiable food allergies.

https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/modifications-accommodate-disabilities-school-meal-programs

chicating Jun 20, 2023

@badtux For a disabled person, I can be under-informed about ADA,

Jonathan Kamens 86 47 Jun 20, 2023

@badtux Yeah, it's pretty much universally true that implementing means-testing ends up costing more than just giving people money. Another argument for UBI, frankly.
The corporate world sometimes gets this right. Years ago when I was at Cisco (don't know if this is still true) receipts for expense reports were sealed in an envelope and sent to corporate, which filed them away and generally didn't look at them. They knew paying people to review the receipts would have cost more than it saved.

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@jik Once you get above 50% or so qualifying for a means-tested program, it's cheaper to just quit means testing, because it starts costing more to exclude the others than to just give it to everybody.

Robotistry Jun 21, 2023

@badtux @jik My employer doesn't want us to even submit receipts if the expense is under $75. Cuts out the filing and storage expenses.

shyduroff Jun 20, 2023

@badtux … bite a poxy gop member at your risk … the ok kids will return in a few years and make the gop eat shit …

Southern Leftist Jun 20, 2023

@badtux
I am not one to assume without proof, but recent news has proven that is indeed a priority of theirs. While the free lunch programs can be improved (tax the rich to pay for it, higher food quality, etc.), this is all but meaningless crap.

No sides are equal in a debate.

Orman Jun 20, 2023

@badtux Would you be able to elaborate on why it took an entire department? Are there complicated requirements surrounding free lunches?

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@orman Complicated requirements surrounding free lunches? ROFL! Free lunch was its own silo, with its own computers and software talking to Fed computers and software, complex validation procedures to validate that a kid that the Feds said was eligible was in fact the same kid who was listed as getting free lunch in our computer, then paperwork processing because we needed applications and signatures from all those parents... it was a paperwork nightmare.

Badtux the Snarky Penguin Jun 20, 2023

@orman Basically, a kid qualified for free lunch either if a) his parents participated in various poverty programs, or b) if he was income-verified by our free lunch department. And each kid had to have his own individual application validated against Fed poverty program lists, and if he was not on the list from the Feds, we had to validate his income via income tax forms or etc. And the Fed lists rarely exactly matched the data in our enrollment records so we had to do extensive validation.

Reed Lindwurm Jun 21, 2023

@orman @badtux I don't know Badtux's district, but here are my guesses at the costs of maintaining such a program:
* employee time and administrative expenses determining student eligibility for free lunch
* employee time and administrative expenses monitoring whether students have paid
* employee time seeking unpaid lunch money, pursuing further consequences if those remain unpaid, and allowing appeals from students/parents
* one or more of the following if nonpayment becomes an issue: lost employee time due to random interpersonal drama, student discipline/counseling issues, dispute resolution needs, legal expenses (not to mention disruption of the student's education)

Depending on how much the lunches cost, this might or might not be worth it.

I've moved to [email protected]Jun 20, 2023

@badtux I'm always amazed at the vast amounts of government money that go into making sure people can't have government money.

x0 Jun 20, 2023

@badtux I'd say it's actually since they're no longer even remotely subtle about saying poor people should just die off.

x0 Jun 20, 2023

@badtux Notice as well the historical poverty rates among ethnic groups. This is eugenics.

Arena Cops 🇺🇦✌Jun 20, 2023

@badtux It's about dividing & weakening communities, to the advantage of the extremist organized despotic minority daring to call itself "Republican party".
Their only agenda today: Driving wedges between Americans.

@badtux God, the name of this character is on the tip of my tongue, is it Waternoose? He does strike me as a leader of the "Anti Woke mind virus" crowd

adamcrussell Jun 21, 2023

@badtux To be fair there is a consistent philosophy here. That is, to suppress anything even remotely in the public good. Even public health efforts during a pandemic. It is cruel, of course. Especially when the root of it all is to simply ensure a favorable tax rate for the wealthiest.

multiversalranger Jun 21, 2023

@badtux Truly, but call out all of the multimillionaires in Congress, not just GOP. Particularly, when they are making money by short selling stocks for companies affected by their bills. They are ALL shady.

Matthew Flint Jun 21, 2023

@badtux
“I went hungry as a child, and so should you. Well, *I* didn’t actually go hungry, but some kids probably did. Not kids at my school, obviously, but some kids somewhere. And it’s was character-building for them! Probably. They told me so, I’ve met them. Well I’ve not actually met any of them, but…”

#WikiParty Jun 21, 2023

@badtux Actually, it's called "class warfare." Besides keeping the poor close to desperation, it employs middle-class enforcers.

Jordan (Damn Good Tech)Jun 21, 2023

@badtux Did anyone investigate why 500 kids couldn't afford lunch and solve that?

Probably would have been cheaper than funding a lunch program and then building a digital bouncer for the kids in need.

Wilbur Ince Jun 21, 2023

@badtux how else can they say"there's no free lunch"?

annie gray Jun 28, 2023

@badtux
Republicans try so hard to make average Americans despise them. Against lunches for kids, against student loan forgiveness, against contraception, against anyone who doesn't fit their bigoted frameworks for sexuality or religion. Their leading candidate is a repugnant criminal. What is there to like about Republicans?

KSev 🇳🇴🌻🚲Jun 28, 2023

@badtux “Cruelty is the point.” Yup

Chloe G artist Jun 28, 2023

@badtux I cant imagine being so evil that you would think this is OK. Repugnant.

Chloe G artist Jun 28, 2023

@badtux (Obviously not you personally. I mean the politicians)

Jens Ljungkvist Jun 28, 2023

In Sweden all children in the school years that are mandatory gets free lunches everyday of school.

They need good food to be able to do the school work and it’s easier for parents too. Plus it equalises different families means to supply lunch either from financial or nutritional view.

Here’s a link to the government program: https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/en/food-habits-health-and-environment/maltider-i-vard-skola-och-omsorg/skola

And here’s a little film on how it can be in a small school in the archipelago: https://youtu.be/BxNN-Ul2cvI

School lunches

Many countries around the world provide school lunches, but Sweden is unique in offering them for free

Lurid Sorcerer Jun 28, 2023

@badtux They use "protecting kids" as a shield for their anti-trans bigotry, but literally feeding kids? Ain't in the budget. Pro-life ends a birth, it seems.

Dogzilla Jun 28, 2023

@badtux In GOPWorld, feeding children is to be avoided at every opportunity