Originally Posted By Dabob2 "No because it is in the US Constitution" The courts ( not just SCOTUS) say you're wrong. You're wrong. You're one of those people who thinks he understands the Constitution better than 220 years of decisions by the co-equal branch of government charged WITH interpreting the Constitution BY that very Comstitution. As such, there is little point arguing with you. Chuckle at you, yes. Argue with you--why? Your tinfoil hat is glaring in my eye. This is not to say they never get it wrong...Dred Scott, Citizens United... but generally those are one-offs that they eventually correct. The record on education agreeing that there is a federal role there is remarkably consistent You can put your fingers in your ears and say "la la, can't hear you, I know better than them" all you like, but it won't change the facts or the law. And will just engender another chuckle from me.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney I see the right wing website readers believe the garbage spewed about Obama taxing Christmas trees. Too bad their being fed a load of crap. "The program — similar to familiar industry campaigns like "Got Milk?" ''Beef: It's What's For Dinner" and "The Incredible Edible Egg" — would have been fully funded by fees on the industry at 15 cents per Christmas tree sold. The industry had asked the USDA to set up the program... White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said the USDA would delay the program, but defended it, saying it was not a tax. "I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama administration is not taxing Christmas trees," Lehrich said. "What's being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign."" <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/usda-yanks-christmas-tree-fees-criticism-14918419" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/Business...14918419</a>
Originally Posted By DyGDisney And, in case you don't read the link, the fee the Christmas tree growers wanted to impose on themselves has been postponed.
Originally Posted By Longhorn12 NO! NO! NO! SEE! THE PRICE! IT'S GOING UP! IT MUST BE TAXES FROM EVIL SOCIALISTS!!! BLARGHGARBLETALKINGINTOUNGUESANDFOAMINGATTHMOUTH
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Sorry It is a quicky as I have to get going for another battle in children's services today. Yesterday was my birthday and I was reflecting on my life and got really grumpy as I am trying to save programmes such as these, and it is painful. Not every hand out is to an octomom, in fact statistically those folks are less than 10%, but the right wing love to hold them up as an example as to why to stop the programmes. But I was one of these kids. My parents were both professionals, but my dad got cancer, my mom got pregnant and then laid off when her publishing job was offshore. The interest rates in the late 80's/early 90's skyrocketed and as mom used credit lines to try to keep us afloat because my dad refused state help, we lost our home. But, I was given free school meals and encouragement to stay in school to reach my potential (rather than dropping out to get a minimum wage job) programmes like this helped me through and enabled me to be the professional I am today. Without it, I do not know what would happen. We knew how to eat heartily ,but the junk was cheaper, and when you are hungry, you are going to buy what fills you up. I see so many cases all the time where people have fallen through the gaps, or women leave their abusive partners because programmes like this help them rebuild a new life (economic entrapment is a huge issue in abusive relationships). Of course the media, and the right wing, rarely focus on this aspect. So tom, sorry if I got personal, but I sacrifice a lot of my time, with my own family to try to reduce social deprivation, many nights alone in a hotel I have cried when I see things getting worse or have been in a front line situation. And the common person spouts off a lot of negativity from these essential programmes. Having worked in Romania during the cold war and Africa when I was in college, I have seen what life is like without these programmes. And good people ,in America and the UK(to a lesser extent) are going hungry. Not all of them are feckless and lazy, in fact that is the minority.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo But I am re examing my life and thinking of getting out. I am tired of all the selfishness and hate. I am tired of people seeing these programmes as a waste and I do not know if I have the energy anymore.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I have no idea what is going on here. I go to bed and find this the next day. I have agreed with SPP on other issues like High Speed Rail in California. But this guy is unhinged. I really resent that SPP has repeated called me "ignorant","stupid" and my posts "vomit". But to somehow draw a comparison between me and former Penn State Coach Sandusky is completely uncalled for. And to post on LP that I am worse than an alleged pedifile I find to be particularly despicable. Is LP going to stand for these sort of posts from SPP?" Apparently so. Over and over and over again you were asked if you'd let a kid starve rather than feed them federally funded food. Over and over and over again your unqualified answer was to ask if the Constitution mandated federal funded food programs. You also repeatedly said people shouldn't have children they couldn't afford, and in your best Tourette's imitation, yelled Octomom! a few times. At no time during those exchanges with different people did you say you wouldn't let the kids starve. Not once. One can only conclude that you'd rather starve a child than pay federal tax dollars to feed them. So you bet, in my mind that most you worse than anything Sandusky allegedly did. Go back and check the thread up until the time I wrote that and see if it isn't an accurate representation of what transpired. Being a slave to ideology can make you or anyone a rather unattractive human being. We don't care to wait while you check.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip Well, I haven't read through 168 posts... just 30 of them. But I believe that for the most part the government-subsidized lunches ARE healthy and nutritious. Our grandniece in High School has free lunches available since her mother has a very low income (even though she works full time). But many (if not most) days instead of accepting the free and nutritious lunch, our grandniece will go through the ala Carte line and pay for crap like French fries and pizza. We’ve talked to her mother about cutting her daughter off and not providing her with money SHE needs so that her daughter can buy crap; but you know how that goes. Parents these days seem to be all about pleasing their kids, even if it means buying them crap for lunch. The school lunch program was much better when I went to school. There was no ala Carte stuff. You bought the standard school lunch, you brought lunch from home, or you starved. This isn’t the fault of any political party or cult like the Tea Party. It is the fault of parents today that JUST CAN’T SAY NO to their children… and schools that now treat the lunch program as an option-driven profit center rather than a break-even effort to provide kids with a nutritious lunch.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip OK. Now I've read all 168 posts and I think my point still stands. At least in MY local school district the basic lunch available for reduced or no cost IS nutritious. It is the ala Carte line that allows kids to buy junk. And if parents whose kids are qualified for the free and nutritious lunch STILL provide them with money to buy crap, what are you going to do? At some point personal responsibility DOES enter the picture!
Originally Posted By skinnerbox <<At least in MY local school district the basic lunch available for reduced or no cost IS nutritious. It is the ala Carte line that allows kids to buy junk. And if parents whose kids are qualified for the free and nutritious lunch STILL provide them with money to buy crap, what are you going to do? At some point personal responsibility DOES enter the picture!>> Thanks, RT, for making a clear and concise distinction between the nutritious meal that's available at low- or no-cost to kids who are probably only able to eat this one complete meal each day, and the a la carte options that include pizza and french fries. I wish all of the options available were whole food, healthy offerings, but at least the disadvantaged kids are getting nutrition instead of obesity-promoting junk.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 Man, there is such a disconnect in here. I don't think anybody is saying that parents, communities, businesses, etc. shouldn't take a more active role in promoting healthy eating habits and general nutrition for children. What's being talked about is an already existing lunch program and the fact that the healthy options are dismissed in favor of food lobbies for less nutritious options. It's not about who is responsible for the children's well-being, that's a whole different topic. This is about something that is already in place, it's not something being created. People here have gone off on these tangents about who should take responsibility, when that wasn't even the issue on the table...
Originally Posted By ecdc No, clearly in this black and white, stumble around like Frankenstein muttering "Government...bad!" world, people who support healthy nutrition programs at the federal level believe moms and dads should be smoking crack during orgies and indiscriminately shooting strays while teachers should be raising children. Oh, and clearly, octomom is the norm. Yes, absolutely, we should judge all single moms like her.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The point is that HEALTHY lunches are available now and would continue to be available because the government requires it for lunches that are offered at reduced price or free. You are talking about extra cost options made available to students who pay for it themselves. I agree that kids SHOULD eat healthier foods (as should adults). But where do you draw the line on what the government allows people to purchase? Are we going to ban kids under 18 from eating at McDonald's? And at the high school level if the kids don't like what the school is serving that is what they will do... hop in their car and drive to Mickey D's. Hell, I did that occasionally 40 years ago when I was in high school. Yes, a healthy lunch should ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE at school. And it should be the ONLY option for free or reduced price lunches... as is currently the case. But I'm not terribly comfortable with the government forcing it on people who are paying their own way. At that point it really is a matter of personal responsibility... something that needs to be decided by the kid or his/her parents. There is also the fact that schools make money on the ala Carte options and soda machines… money that they need desperately. If you take that revenue source away from them where will that money come from? You can be pretty sure that it WON’T come from the Federal government. Consequently schools will more than likely increase the price of their healthy lunches. At some point government regulation becomes excessive, and trying to dictate what people spend their own money on crosses that line as far as I’m concerned.
Originally Posted By DyGDisney You guys keep talking about HS, but my focus is more on what the kids at the elementary level are fed. What shall they eat today, re-heated corndogs left over from yesterday, nachos (chips and nacho cheese), or pizza? Occasionally an alternate may be healthy...or not. They never have fries at my daughter's school, just other crap. Yeah, there's a salad bar the kids can go to after they pick up their main meal, but how many do?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>At some point government regulation becomes excessive, and trying to dictate what people spend their own money on crosses that line as far as I’m concerned.<< No one disagrees with that. But in this particular topic, we have congress doing the bidding lobbyist$ for salt, french fries and calling tomato paste a vegetable. It isn't out of some philosophical concern about government overreach. It's about lining their own damn pockets. THAT'S the "big government" problem that really exists, and small government fans should be speaking up about that.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip At the elementary school level the parent can clearly control it. No school I know of takes cash for school lunches... it has to be money deposited on a lunch card that the student uses. How tough would it be for the school to issue a lunch card that can ONLY be used to purchase the "official" school lunch eligible for government subsidy? That way the parent can prevent their child from choosing any of the unhealthy options available. They have the choice of what their child eats without any attempt to dictate what some other child may eat. We don't need a law for EVERYTHING!
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I realize you can only go so far in trying to provide healthy options. Kids will horse trade parts of their lunch with other kids, and wind up with three pudding cups or something. But I don't think it's government overreach to make the available choices better than pancake and sausage on a stick (that's on the local school lunch menu here). Hopefully, combined with health education efforts, kids will opt for healthier fare. Having the general offerings be healthier in general would help as well.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox I like that idea, RT. Now if we can only get money out of politics, so that the junk food lobbyists can't purchase their multi-million dollar Congressional Happy Meals and sentence our children's health to diabetic life sentences of obesity hell. BTW... anyone care to guess who the biggest corporate lobbyist is against the "Too Healthy School Lunch" initiatives? Coca-Cola, one of the major contributors to the skyrocketing rise in type 2 diabetes in American teens. We need to get money out of politics. Now.
