Mastodawn

They pay $34 for burgers. Should their fire department service be free? Opening a new fire department in one of NYC's richest neighborhoods has some of America's pettiest journalists asking silly questions in headlines again.🤡

The article acknowledges the fire department analogy, then blows past it.🤷🏿‍♂️

The solve for "Sometimes when a service like free childcare is available to all, marginalized communities get squeezed out," is "Address that racism."

It's not "Therefore waste incredible amounts of time and money trying to means test something that society should just make available to all.🤡"

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸

@mekkaokereke
When school lunch programs throw out the "who deserves to get free lunches?" and just provide for every child, the entire program is cheaper due to the lack of an enforcement layer, all children get fed, and children learn more and pay attention better.

Being overly concerned that someone might get something they don't "deserve" usually ends up screwing over the ones who need help most.

We're supposed to "promote the general welfare" of the public - not gate-keep who gets help.

Raymond Russell 8h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke
My pet hate.
When you start to "means test" something that really should be universal the means test itself costs money to administer and you create a barrier to some of those who should be benefiting but may not be able to navigate the red tape required for many many reasons.

Nicolai von Neudeck 7h ago

@raymierussell @realtegan @mekkaokereke I used to make software for calculation of the distribution of social welfare (we were actually hard limited in how much we could give, because we were the student government redistributing money between students, so it was justified in my opinion) and oh dear is it not free to figure out if someone should get something if you calculate how rich or poor they are

Raymond Russell 7h ago

@nicolai
classic paradox in the UK welfare system is that right leaning people will complain about fraud in the system. Its true that there is fraud BUT there is 10 times (at least) in unclaimed benefits because the system is so difficult to navigate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yv0e9yjexo

Millions missing out on benefits and government support, analysis suggests

A report from Policy in Practice says awareness, complexity and stigma are the main barriers stopping people claiming.

BBC News

Eric Lawton 7h ago

💯
And we already have the right machinery to recover the money from those who don't need it: it's called the tax system. Fox that instead of introducing program-by-program assessments.

@realtegan @mekkaokereke @bonaventuresoft

Raymond Russell 7h ago

@EricLawton @realtegan @mekkaokereke @bonaventuresoft

Absolutely, if you tax those who can afford it then there should no complaints about them getting 'free' stuff as they are getting out from a system that they have paid the most into.

@realtegan @mekkaokereke Sigh. I really hate the mindset of “what if someone undeserving benefits.”

So what? Especially when it involves children.

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸8h ago

@CStamp @mekkaokereke
Exactly.

And by giving everyone a free lunch and breakfast, it removes the stigma of "being too poor" to pay for lunch. That removes a tiny portion of the humiliation that comes from living in poverty.

Then there's the families who cannot figure out how to apply for the free lunch program - or don't have time because the parent(s) work extra jobs. Those children don't go hungry if every child is fed.

We need to stop gate-keeping who needs help, and just help people.

@realtegan @mekkaokereke If the US has trillions of $ to bomb children in other nations, they certainly have $ to feed its own kids. :(

Kids are the most importantly resource of any country.

Stephen Dioxide

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
― Adam Smith

"The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor."
- James Madison

@Steve @CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke

And at least Madison thought this was a feature rather than a bug. In fact Madison's obsessive worry that in a democracy the majority of the poor might vote in laws that would protect them from capitalist predation, which after all is how he and his founding buddies made their dough, is why we have a republic rather than a democracy. He lays it all out in the open in Federalist 10.

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10/

Federalist No. 10 by James Madison | Majority Rule v Minority Rights

Federalist No.10 written by James Madison defended the form of republican government proposed by the Constitution.

National Leader in Civic Education Resources | Bill of Rights Institute

Philip Mallegol-Hansen 8h ago

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke Is it even *possible* for anyone (a child in particular) to be undeserving?

Seems like a pretty vital assumption that the answer is yes, but I’m not convinced.

Yenn dc ☂️4h ago

I *might* be willing to concede that people who can afford to (and do) put effort into keeping others from eating are [themselves undeserving].

That's about it tho.

MikeStok 8h ago

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke if we’re going to give billionaires and corporations tax breaks then feeding kids without means testing seems like small change.

Ken Milmore 8h ago

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke "Deserves got nothing to do with it"

Greg Bell 7h ago

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke also, means testing is expensive, hard, and sucks. The most cost-effective way to help everyone who deserves it, is to help everyone.

George B 2h ago

@CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke

Most American thing is making 100 people suffer to avoid 1 freeloader.

@gbargoud But what if the wrong children get to eat? @CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke

Rupert V/12m ago

@gbargoud @CStamp @realtegan @mekkaokereke More like making 10,000 people suffer to create one millionaire and blaming it on the 100 "freeloaders".

Humphrey Archer 8h ago

Trying to carve out a "special" class who are entitled to school lunch has always been a foolish approach that just adds layers of expensive policing that INEVITABLY wind up costing more than they save, and preventing some number of eligible students from getting serviced.

Unfortunately, some people are always more focused on the remote or insignificant risk of cheaters, than they are on make sure that they are servicing those who need it

Just make it free to all

wakejagr 7h ago

@screwturn @realtegan @mekkaokereke

Yup. School lunch should be free for all.

Want to make sure that people who make more than some arbitrary amount don't get freebies? Tax the rich.

Humphrey Archer 7h ago

School lunch
Education
Public transit
Basic healthcare

Should all be free at point of use

@realtegan @mekkaokereke

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸7h ago

@screwturn @wakejagr @mekkaokereke

Life = Basic healthcare, school lunch
Liberty = Public transit
Pursuit of Happiness = Education

And so on. You can map the basics to the preamble and come up with a good list of things that Promote the General Welfare of the people and should be free at point of use in order to make a more perfect union.

Not everything should be free, but providing the basics should be the main purpose of a good government.

EndicottRoad59 8h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke Agreed.

fyrfli, jamaican-born, universe-made 8h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke but then, how would they justify their “black and brown people don't deserve anything” stance? now that's just silly-talk.

(/s in case anyone is wondering)

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸8h ago

@fyrfli @mekkaokereke

When you look to the heart of America's problems, 99.99999% of it can be traced directly to racism.

@realtegan @mekkaokereke
Well said. In the same way, I wish the MBTA here (transit) would spend less on fare collection gates, watchdog personnel, cameras, April Fools jokes, and spinning "fare evaders" as the core problem, and instead move toward true universal public service.

After decades of inefficiency, it's hard for me to believe they care. But I have hope that _some_ MBTA employees do care enough for change, and it's a topic I will continue to bring up a lot.

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸7h ago

@almonds @mekkaokereke
Free transit is another thing that would help so many people. Inner city travel shouldn't have a fare. Getting around easily helps the economy of a city. Artificially restricting travel is like cutting off the blood supply. A city thrives when its citizens can move and DO things.

A lot of people think only of their little place - they don't look at the entire system and how it ought to function. Some things being widely available just make everything better for everyone.

bipolaron 6h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke this was how it was at all my schools elementary through high school; it sure helps with shame around needing help too. kids should never be made to feel bad about not having money.

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸6h ago

@bipolaron @mekkaokereke
I grew up in the 1970s, and if you were poor you brought a sack lunch or went hungry. Buying a lunch was a luxury. Then they offered free lunch for some kids, but the process to get it was nasty to go through, and as I recall there was a voucher the child had to use - visible to all other students so they knew the kid was getting a free lunch. The teasing was enough to make some kids go hungry, because children are cruel.

When everyone gets it, it's so much better.

And then there's the question of how "food" and "lunch" are defined.

I was a gradeschooler in the early-mid '80s, in a rich-to-very-rich suburban U.S. school district. The lunches – not free – were high in processed fat, white starch, sugar, salt, and additives. Hamburgers with a bunch of filler; hot dogs, gas station-spec nachos, "french bread pizza", chikkin nuggets, dubious cheese, boiled-to-death vegetables, sugary canned fruit cocktail, etc. Filled up my belly (and enlarged it), but nutrition? LOLnope. I'm sure they've only got worse in the United States of Ketchup Counts As A Vegetable. Oh yeah, they also offered a "brown bag special" at lower cost, which was a couple slices of dubious bologna and a square of plastic cheez with imitation mayonnaise, on white bread.

Compare that slop to this what they somehow manage to do in Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITzRFAfJsLA

@bipolaron @realtegan @mekkaokereke

How A Japanese Megakitchen Prepares Thousands Of School Lunches Everyday | Big Batches

YouTube

As I recall, back then school lunches were a dumping ground for American food companies to get rid of excess products so they could claim a tax break while foisting that crap on our still developing children.

@rickf I don't closely follow, but I don't imagine it's any better now.

AccordionBruce 6h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke @paul_ipv6
If instead of means-testing they spent that money on tax audits to catch evasion by the very wealthy

They could quickly pay for the whole program

Tax audits are the most cost effective government spending possible

And get, unpopular with conservatives 🤔

Blaine Cross 5h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke Free school lunches for all is what Democrats and Gov. Walz did in Minnesota.

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ⛈ 🐸5h ago

@blainecross @mekkaokereke
When I saw how well it works locally - the general health of students went up, as well as attendance, grades, and graduation rates - I was completely won over to the idea of free lunches (and breakfasts) for all school children. I cheered when I heard what Walz did in Minnesota.

Paul_IPv6 4h ago

@realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke

it's one of the cheapest and most humane ways to raise graduation rates & test scores, lower absenteeism.

if someone is all bent about "someone taking advantage of free school meals", that tells me more about that person than about problems with the program.

canevecchio 2h ago

@paul_ipv6 @realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke Is there really anything more important on earth than feeding and nurturing our children? Should anyone really care about what it costs? Aren't they all our children, and therefore our future as a species? Never mind whether they're genetically related to us or not, are they not still ours in the most fundamental sense imaginable? What is wrong with these people who only see in them something to constrain, deprive and punish?

0xC0DEC0DE07EA 11m ago

@Canevecchio this is why I marvel every year at the brass ones on the conservative asshole who managed to get “Education” as a separate line item on everybody’s property tax statement. Like, sure, that breakdown of where the town’s taxes go is public information, but calling out how much it costs to teach and care for children like that is such a transparently shitty thing.

Well, sure, but that would threaten the productivity of the school-to-prison pipeline.

@paul_ipv6 @realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke

Jon Moore 3h ago

@realtegan @blainecross @mekkaokereke Philadelphia School District also provides free lunch and breakfast to all students.

Michael Busch 2h ago

@blainecross @realtegan @mekkaokereke

There are still artificial limits to school meals here in Minnesota - kids can't get extra milk or another serving without paying for it.

What has been done is good, but not yet what it should be.

LovesTha🥧3h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke much easier and better to have progressive taxation than means tested services.

Ian Chard 3h ago

@realtegan Yes! Now do UBI.

Dark Phoenix 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈2h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke yeah, we have a serious shortage of promoting the general welfare.

why not wy 2h ago

@realtegan @mekkaokereke As a kid who was constantly on the line, like, maybe we made enough on paper not to qualify for free lunch, but damn sure nobody was handing me $0.85 a day, I am a strong proponent of just feed the kids if they're fucking hungry.