As a taxpayer who funds public schools, I find it acceptable to subsidize the food of those who are struggling, but I do not have any desire to subsidize the ruling elite (who, in many cases, intentionally keep working class pay low). They can pay for their own children's food.
On the other hand we've got the phrase "Programs for the poor become poor" for a reason. Having a program that benefits everyone means that we all can support it out of enlightened self-interest.
We can reduce overhead by providing food for everyone and not putting in place a complex government bureaucracy to carefully approve some people but not others, to give lobbyists a chance to advocate for the benefit of their constituents at the expense of everyone else, etc, etc.
Moreover, if free food is only available to low-income students, having to eat that food can become a symbol of poverty, and some students may feel ashamed to receive it. Making it available to all students, without reservation, avoids that.
People say that, but it’s not like they have a flashing light that says “TIMMY IS POOR AND THIS LUNCH IS FREE,” they just punch their code or swipe their card or whatever and it rings up as free.
> I find it acceptable to subsidize the food of those who are struggling, but I do not have any desire to subsidize the food of those who keep my pay low.
Doesn't the means-testing bureaucracy frequently outweigh any potential savings? Food is cheap. Bureaucrats are not.
The rich are going to be paying the majority of the taxes that fund this. Is it unacceptable that their children be allowed to get a small fraction of the food their parents paid for?
By blanket helping everyone no matter the wealth, you end up helping mostly non-wealthy people.
By helping specifically the poor/not wealthy, you end up with a massive bureaucracy trying to decide who is wealthy enough, and add paperwork on top of poorer people to "request" such benefit.
You shouldn't be a sucker. For the ruling elite, it's an insignificant tax rebate. The overhead of a means-testing system to make sure that people who have been taxed for 50 free lunches don't get one is a waste that wouldn't be tolerated, except for the fact that we know the hurdles of bureaucracy will eliminate most of the people who qualify, bringing down costs by leaving children hungry.
edit: The idea that your tax dollars are going to pay for the universal benefit of someone who pays more taxes than you do is mathematically nonsensical. It's purely a gimmick. It's a shell game with no shells other than innumeracy.
If you have kids yes. If you don't then you could still being paying for some rich kid's food. Still I would have no problem with this since the alternative is to means test which is just wasteful bureaucracy. Plus I am perfectly willing to subsidize the one rich kid so the 10 poor ones can eat.
The solution to this problem (Wealthy elites getting free stuff) is to just ensure they're taxed appropriately. I do not care if the children of the wealthy are receiving free lunches as long as they're paying their fair share of taxes. Chances are, even with California's weird tax system, they are paying more than your typical middle class family.
There is no reason not make it universal. A lot of kids will still bring their own lunches. Teens in high school will choose paid lunch options some of time. The program would probably have a similar cost to SNAP.
Hungry kids don't learn well, so feeding them will lead to a modest increase of academic achievement on average. Academic achievement correlates with higher earnings, thereby paying for the program with their future taxes.
This seems to make sense on the surface, but I'm skeptical about the last part. It seems we're in a race to the bottom and "good" jobs are increasingly scarce. It seems there aren't enough good jobs for the population. Basically, the logic you laid out is probably sound for small marginal changes, but I'm skeptical it would scale well due to the competition and limited resources.
It's much simpler to provide public services to everyone and handle economic inequality through taxation.
Means-tested benefits result in bureaucracy that sometimes costs more than the increase in cost from giving the benefit to everyone would be, they create poverty traps, and they screw over people in atypical situations (i.e. a kid whose parents care so little they can't even be bothered to get the paperwork done that proves their low income status).
In theory I agree with you, but in practice I think means testing does more harm than good. Some parents aren't gonna fill out the paperwork and we shouldn't punish kids for that. It also adds overhead to the programs.
And I don't think the ruling elite's kids are eating free lunch at public schools :)
Adding on to this a bit, if the ruling elite's children did eat the same cafeteria good, I think it would be a net boon for society.
Think of how every family in Finland taking home a newborn baby gets a box of starter supplies. The box doubles as a crib, so most babies, regardless of their parents wealth, spend their first days sleeping in the same cardboard box.
IMO it's cool as shit to start everyone off the same way like that. From what I understand it also helps reduce the sort of stigma that can hurt kids taking advantage of free lunch programs
> but I do not have any desire to subsidize the ruling elite (who, in many cases, intentionally keep working class pay low). They can pay for their own children's food.
I would hope they get taxed more under this regime so it's not really you subsidizing it for them.
What if you thought of it as: perhaps at your income level your taxes fund one kid's meals, and at the elite's income level their taxes fund ten kids' meals? IDK how the actual numbers work, but that would be the gist in a progressive tax system.
The rich will pay far more into the program for free lunches that include their kids than their kids will receive back. And it'll probably make the program more efficient, since there won't be a pointless bureaucracy devoted to making sure there's no one getting free lunches who doesn't deserve those low-quality free lunches (the horror).
Sorry, where's the regressive tax policy? If this is being funded by a graduated income tax (like what most states have, or federal income tax), then it's being funded by a progressive tax.
