I think if I had to choose between living in your world or Jon's I may move by you, high taxes and all. I would much rather have people at least trying to help other people than shoving their faux morality down my throat. Of course if there was a third choice... :)

Don't have any idea what you are talking about.

Where do you stop denying treatment for risky behavior? Do smokers lose medical access? What about red meat lovers? People who have multiple sex partners?

If you try I'd bet you could deny medical care to almost everyone.

Where do you stop spending other people's money trying to solve all of the above problems?

I'd prefer that it wasn't necessary to provide anyone else's morality, but given the complete absence of it in so many cases ...


But if your idea of what's important is to become the food police, consider the government running healthcare as a legitimate option worthy of even hypothetical conditions, and to end the only attempt at educational accountability in decades, please, move to DT Land. You wouldn't be welcome in Jonville, even be granted a temporary tourist visa to visit a distant relative would be questionable.

You didn't mention other people's money.

But my money goes to all sorts of people through insurance premiums, drug costs, etc.

That's ok. I just thought one overly simple solution to a complex problem deserved another ;)

I grew up with an alcoholic dad...like many...I believe the government should prevent people from drinking.

I love the over-exaggeration. Some people want to swap out some pizza for fruit in the school lunch program and it turns into the government determining what you can have for dinner tonight.

Is this before or after the death camps open up?

8 billion for that swap? Sure...

It's funny that you feel this only takes place in a government run health care plan. Your insurance premiums pay for all those obese smokers. All those people who never step foot in a gym. Or those people who happen to lose the genetic lottery and came down with some sort of disorder under no fault of their own (unless being born is a choice?).

So the argument here seems to be having you pay for people in poor health through your insurance premiums, or through your taxes.

So, for $8,000,000,000, I look forward to seeing a noticeable decline in the percentage of obese children in this country. Or is this another one of those good intentions thing?

Do folks really think it's that far off? I have no problem with kids getting nutrion at school. Do you think that'll change what they eat at home? No...why? Because they lack parenting. More than likely they have overweight parents and they will model that behavior...or they will get their parents to pack their lunch...or whatever other workaround there will be.

Now what? 8 billion spent, probably some kids learned, but the vast majority continue doing what they're doing...playing video games and eating crap. So now the government takes the next step by taxing such foods...and guess what? The people continue doing it. Then they seek to take it off the market.

Does this all happen overnight like I might have made it seem? No but it's the way it would head...just like everything else, the government feels they have the power to do such things and sadly, a small amount of people feed this.

No actually this isn't the point I am trying to make. I think $8,000,000,000 to change public school lunches in hopes that it will chnage choices being made at home is a waste of money and will accomplish zero. I don't feel there is really any positive of a giant bureaucracy trying to tackle any problem. I offered up some solutions in case someone asked me what I would do. I personally would do nothing. I could care less about obesity, I am sure those 500+ lb people feel like shit all of the time and that is probably miserable enough without trying to tax them to change their behavior.

And if it means our overall obesity problem declines in 10-15 years, it's worth every penny. The question is does this $8 billion end up saving us money in the long run in terms of avoidable medical issues that we cover for others through our premiums, or in our taxes for programs such as Medicare. If it does, it's a no-brainer.

Lot of people complaining about unhealthy people costing them money. So someone puts a plan in place to get these people on the right track early before their ways are set in stone, and everyone shits on it.

I personally think the biggest problem with obesity is education. It's staggering how many people still think fat makes you fat. Or avoids fruit because it has carbs. How many people actually know what their BMR is? Teach people that shit and I think you start seeing results.

But you do care. A few posts up you talked about not paying for medical expenses caused by obesity. So make up your mind on where you stand here. You either don't give a shit about them or you do.

Whatever. Try and twist my words all you want. We both know the $8,000,000,000 is not going to change shit. I am opposed to spending $8,000,000,000 on a project that is doomed to fail. Kids are not fat because of school lunch offerings they are fat because their parents are fat.

Actually they are. Studies have shown that kids are almost twice as likely to be obese if they purchase school lunches versus bring a lunch from home. They drink more sugary beverages, eat less fruit/vegetables, and consumed more fatty meats.

I'm sure parents play a role in that, but the statistics don't lie.

It isn't going to change what they eat at school either, it's just going to reduce the amount they eat. Kids will eat what kids will eat and no amount of money spent is going to suddenly make them stop liking pizza nor start liking tofu sprout casserole.

The current "OMG the kids are overweight" hysteria is one of the most absurd bits of bullshit in many years, making it the perfect cause for the fence post turtle's wife.

I was offering up the solution because DT and company are big supporters of the government running health care so I gave them an option that would fit into their plan. As far as NCLB goes... this next generation will be landing a man on Mars with the "improvements" that have occured since the farce that is NCLB was passed. Nothing better than public schools teaching to a test and teaching even less critical thinking.

As to your tourist visa... I live in St. Louis so don't take this the wrong way but I don't think anyone is coming to middle Georgia or Missouri on vacations. So I am not all that worried about my visa being revoked. :)

So why does it cost $8,000,000,000 to offer a healthy alternative? That's $150 a kid. Really?

A letter to each school cafeteria saying to please offer healthy foods = $40,000. (I am sure they may be able to get a discount here also)

What does the other $7,999,960,000 go towards?

Hey, that's why I used visiting a relative ;)

Hehe. We'd welcome you in our world. I'm all for fiscal responsibility - I just don't think that the way to get there is to cut all social programs to the bone. I'd much rather see it taken out of the defense budget, closing tax loopholes for corporations and the ultra-rich, and eliminating pork-barrel bullshit projects that senators bring home to their districts.

A few libertarians, or even a decent core of them to promote fiscal responsibility and keep things in line wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

This is a good example of giving a middle class solution to a poverty class problem.

I did urban lunch programs, fitness and education for years. The poor kids I worked with (Chinatown and Mission) lunch was by far their biggest meal of the day. hardly anyone had video games, most parent(s) worked 12 hours and they always had many generations to care for.

A major problem, what is inconceivable the middle class, is access to fresh, affordable food. There are no super markets. So it's fill up the food stamps with whatever you can get at the corner store.

I have no idea on the amount. Maybe it is way too much. I'm just arguing the fact that if kids are given healthier meals, they will be healthier individuals. They will crave healthier foods. I do know that in mass food production, healthier foods cost more. It's much cheaper to serve hot dogs on white buns than lean meats with fresh fruit.

Parents are a big problem, there is no denying that. I'm still shocked at how many parents let their kids drink soda regularly. When I grew up, we'd get it on rare occasions. When we went out to dinner, over holidays, or on a hot Summer day. We weren't able to just run in and pound a six-pack of Pepsi every day like some of these kids can.

Then again, while we had video games, it wasn't like today. Our days still consisted of being outside playing sports till sun fall.

No doubt. I would have no problem with any of those. Add to it take all of the money out of our offensive budget and let Isreal pull the puppet strings on Jon's country.

Well D-day was pretty good...

Not if they won't eat them, most of what you're accomplishing then is wasting food.

I've seen the "healthy choices" type menu in use, more than one version of it in fact. Not even high achieving kids of highly educated parents in a town chock full of both foodies & erstwhile hippie health nuts would touch the majority of it. And that's with it prepared by a local restaurant off-site, much less what would happen with a typical school cafeteria working on it.

This is nothing more than another liberal feel-good boondoggle throwing even more taxpayer dollars down the drain. And even the slightest bit of common sense & reality could avoid it.

Sure. Along with Iraq, Afganistan, Vietnam, Korea right? Or are we just patting ourselves on the back for our "big wins"?

Opps forgot about those. You are right. (undoing the high five i gave myself)
i hope a giant fountain land on your head :)

Ohh...Ooh...I know. Why don't we visit this one year from after this takes effect and you can tell me the amount that actually went to the distribution of real food (as oppose to "guidelines") versus the bureaucracy and paperwork in making this program look good.

Just using better ingredients and less salt while still serving the same dishes would go a long way.

What kind of food are we talking about here? I haven't seen a menu but I can't imagine them going too crazy. I'm for swapping out white bread for whole wheat. Fresh fruit instead of gummy worms. Chicken breasts instead of hot dogs.

And this isn't a liberal feel-good boondoggle. It's supposed to cut costs down the road by having less kids with obesity related problems entering adulthood. The thing that half this thread has been bitching about paying for. Although I know statistics and science are the work of the devil.

And if the kids don't eat it, fine. They can go hungry. This notion that kids will only eat meals that are fried or covered in frosting is absurd.

I think myself, Buccaneer, rowech, JIMga (and others but these had the most posts) have all said it isn't going to do $8,000,000,000 worth of good while you have. That seems to be the major difference. We want to know what could possibly cost $8,000,000,000? Like JPhillips said better ingredients and less salt. I agree that would be great but that isn't going to cost $160,000 a school is it?

Salaries, benefits, pensions, office space, consultants, fees for experts, printing costs, office supplies, travel costs, conferences, IT infrastructure, on-site and off-site training, vehicles, etc. Not to mention that next year's budget, which is not zero-based.

That's where most of your tax dollars go to and you wonder, for big programs or small ones, why so few benefits comparatively happen for so much costs.

But some elected official or politician can claim progress or "doing something", as well as any of these programs used as ammunition for opposition politics, allowing the bureaucracy, belt-way mentality and deficits to grow.

And just to be clear about what's actually in the bill:

I'm pretty sure the Senate has also passed a version, but for about half the total of the House bill.

I'm just wondering your reason behind that. Studies have shown that kids who eat school lunches (which are unhealthier than home lunches), are much more obese and have much more health problems down the road that burden our health system.

If there are studies showing that healthier lunches has no positive impact, then I'm on your side. I don't want to waste money either.

Buccaneer's answer is much better than anything I can come up with. I have witnessed bureaucracy at both my job and the federal level for so long that I know where a lot of this $8,000,000,000 is headed.

Please show me the school lunch that's handing out gummy worms.


You speak as though this hasn't happened already.

Here's a link to the Jasper County (GA) Primary School menu. Lots of free/reduced lunch students, below average system in the worst educational state in the union. Nothing high brow about it in the least, that's for damned sure.

I'm going to take a sample from March, a time when there isn't a holiday or field day or something to throw them out of a normal routine. 24 days of lunches, 2 of which are sandwich/sack lunch due to early release.

Dessert included 1x brownie, 2x blueberry cobbler (w/fruit option), and 20x of fruit. Some of that is likely fresh fruit, some probably heavy syrup canned (I'd suspect the peaches being that way) but not a gummy worm in sight.

I see steamed carrots, broccoli, some beans, some potatoes. I see beef, I see chicken (both fried & not), a good bit of turkey, a pretty rounded selection of meat frankly.

Now the breakfast menu, that's pretty rough I'd agree. Between the pop tarts & the honey buns (excuse me, enriched breakfast bun), it's low even on my version of the healthy-meter. But let's also be realistic about their options, the breakfast-is-the-most-important-meal-of-the-day theory says eat something above all else. The options of what can be consumed quickly are a little limited (most of the time these students have less than 10 minutes to get off the bus, get to the lunchroom, eat, and get to class. Other cases I'm familiar with have even less time than that). You could go bananas & fruit & yogurt I suppose but the biggest accomplishment with that is going to be sharply cutting back on the number of kids who eat breakfast at all.

I'm not a fan of


Know many kids? I've got the oddball kid of the bunch I've met across three different private schools, he'll actually eat pizza that has something more than cheese on it. Sushi, broccoli, keeps fruit around for snacks by choice, etc (although he likes his Lay's chips just fine too). Now take some of his classmates somewhere & try to feed 'em, like I've done. I described the environment around here, we're the poor country folks by comparison. But 80% of these kids are your standard mac n' cheese, plain hamburger, cheese pizza, chicken nugget kids. And you want to seriously suggest that the average public school student in a 40% free lunch school is going to be more open to foods not typically found on a kid's menu at Applebee's? You're either out of your mind or completely out of touch with the majority of kids.

Of course they weigh less, they often aren't eating lunch at all. Bringing it <> eating it. Go sit in a school lunchroom & watch sometime, like I have for years.
Over half of what comes to school ends up in the trash, along with a good bit of what's on the lunchroom tray.

Is that what we really want to create with federal funding, kids who don't eat?

And just to be clear about what's actually in the bill:


Vegan options for children! We'll find some way to pay for it!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/all...s-child-n.html

LOL. I thought the guy on the commericial could feed a kid in Africa 3 meals a day for $0.82 a day. Now the US government needs $2 more on top of whatever number is in the budget already (my guess is at least $2-$3) to feed an American one meal?

There's no overhead? Really? I can't see you through my computer but this post was not made with a straight face was it?

where do you get that 1000 kids per school average?

Africa is the model of libertarianism, isn't it? I mean not many rules and regulations and surely no beaucratic tie-ups and wasteful spending. Free markets do dominate.

I'm not sure if he's counting individual schools, or townships?

Public elementary schools, by grade span, average school size, and state or jurisdiction: 2001-02

Just eyeballing this it would be half that.

His numbers aren't that bad. The school average size is probably a little off but if you figure 1/3 of the school age kids will get assitance it would be around $300 a kid.

My point is that this is extra money needed on top of whatever ungodly amount we are spending already. So it is $2 MORE a day to feed healthy alternates.

Is this one of them ad hominem attacks I heard so much about under Bush? Or is that actually a reply to his point?

So somehow we have had multiple generations of children develop into adults yet not having access to fried foods and sugary treats? I'm astounded that we didn't have mass starvation back in the 1800's from kids not being able to have Chicken McNuggets.

Is your argument really that the kids who are given healthy lunches are just choosing to never eat?

Let's try and be reasonable here. I am saying you can stop a kid from starving for about $0.20. We are probably spending $5-6 already. Now they want to spend $2 more? They could get a decent restaurant to cater every school in the country for this price. $0.20... $8 There has to be a happy medium. You know the food cost is at best 50% of the budget.

I guess. He constantly points out how government is bad and all it creates is wasteful bueracracies. It's worth noting that the countries that have the smallest government control are those in Africa and other parts of the 3rd world. Is that what we are aiming for?

I'm fine with smaller government in many areas, but I'm just waiting for these examples of countries that have extremely small governments that are succesful.

You mean those countries where 99% of the wealth and power is controlled by a dictator and his family/cronies?

ungodly?

i think what we spend on them per kid per meal is something like $1.60 or something. that's the number that stuck in my head from that Jamie Oliver show. It's nowhere near $5-6 like you suggest. You're wayyyyyyyyy off.

When I think of libertarianism, I think Uganda.

This has nothing to do with my arguement and also isn't true. The United States is pretty high on the economic freedom scale but there aren't any African countries above it. We are really high up there but wasting tax money like this isn'tr why and only moves us down. Sorry but $8,000,000,000 here and there does start to add up.

FFS - it's 8 billion over 10 years. At least try to be intellectually honest and call it 800 million instead of using the "big fearful number" tactic.

European health care.

Much cheaper, much better.

So I looked it up and it is $2.68. So we need to add $2 more to make these lunches healthier?

Europeans are the ones called socialists and nanny states. The opposite of what panerd wants.

Now seems like a good a time as any to break this out:

lol. only $800,000,000 a year.

okay. 2.68...so i wasn't bad.

It's also not only the menu options you have to look at, but the way in which they're prepared. frozen stuff with no nutrients...canned fruits full of sugar, bleached white flour.

look at what they can provide for $2.68. Now imagine how much better it could be for $4.68. It's like going from a smartcar to a ferrari.

If you can find a restaurant to cater for <$5 per head, have at it.

Countries with little to no rules and regulations. No big government bueracracies. All the horrible things ruining this country.

which is a drop in the federal budget, especially when you look at some of the other stuff that you and i both agree could be cut.

fuck...buy one less f-22 and you could fund the entire project for like...50 years (aren't they like $40,000,000,000 each?)

I'm not saying just tack it onto the budget forever...but it'd sure be easy to find bullshit useless stuff to cut to save way more money than that per year.

which is ~$3 per year per person, or less than 2/3rd of a penny per day.

Fuck. I have been on here for way to long on this. (This is what happens when I go on vacation and spend 10+ days away from the political threads) If you guys don't think spending $800,000,000 a year more on free and reduced lunch is a waste of money than you aren't going to agree with me. Attack me being a Libertarian all you want $800,000,000 is a huge waste of money. One really has nothing to do with the other here.

Cartman's cartoon is actually pretty funny. (has nothing to do with how $800,000,000 is being spent but it is funny)

My whole point is this: I know how important school lunches are in many districts. Instead of a one-size-fits-all legislation in which a high percentage of the actual expenditures will stay in Washington, local school districts and states (to some extent) can target specific schools and school districts in better meeting a more direct need to our kids. More control (and taxation revenues) should be given locally. Some of it will be mismanaged, some wasted but some will be more beneficial than the federal bureaucracy in which most of it will be wasted (i.e., little or no cost/benefit); not out of stupidity, but out of the nature of how they have to work (and the myriad of conflicting, confusing and restrictive federal laws).

.0002% of our budget.

fair enough. they could probably also get fresher food. although then you give up the bulk purchasing power of the federal government and its ability to get the food very cheap (although it's unhealthy). So there's a huge tradeoff there also.

I will gladly donate $3 (and more) to my local school district to help feed our kids better.

It's that kind of thinking (I'm including defense here, hold your horses) that got that fucker that bloated in the first place. It's like a 350 lb guy saying, "Fuck it I'm huge, pizza for lunch is not a problem."

Is it a bad expense if the $800 million a year saves $2 billion in health care expenses down the line a year?

Isn't this what it's about? Healthier kids make healthier adults which makes less unnecessary health care costs. Isn't dumping a couple hundred bucks a year on a kid better than having to cover their triple bypass and diabetes medication in 30 years?

no shit, I don't disagree with you at all on paragraph 2. I am just saying that 1,000 "small" billion dollar projects is how we got to a trillion dollar deficit. And they most likely aren't going to cut anything to pay for this. They never cut anything.

Not to mention getting on board with buying local organically grown foods and supporting sustainable agriculture locally (like many restaurants do around here). Certain federal laws prevent that (thanks to the Big Agri-business lobby).

Are you sure that will be the benefit?

I don't know the numbers on it. I'm sure there is a study somewhere on the cost savings of an obese person vs non-obese person.

This thread and the health care thread is filled with people claiming that we dump all this money into people who are obese. So wouldn't creating less obese individuals save a lot of money? I guess I just feel if our obesity rate can go down, it's less of a burden on our insurance premiums and Medicare costs.

Just ran a Google search, says obese people spend $1500 more a year on health care costs.

The Cost of Obesity: $147 Billion Per Year, Almost 10 Percent of U.S. Medical Costs - ABC News

I just saw this and thanks it made my day. I resemble a few of these types.lol.

According the Wikipedia, a F-22 costs 150 million. And they're just so much cooler than a school lunch.

i could have sworn they cost more. oh well.

b2 stealth bombers do cost billions, right?

I think almost a billion a plane.

This lunch debate really shows the power, and beauty of the web. we really don't know what we are talking about. no numbers, little bill language, no previous stats, etc.

really, this has come down to: because the gov't has messed up so much, 8 billion on anything is pretty much a waste.

I think these kind of debates predate the intertubes by a longshot.

I'm no fan of socialism, but it's one step above our system. We have had socialist spending without the socialist services.

The driving force behind any American school food program is lucrative contracts for well-connected companies. That doesn't necessarily mean we shouldn't do it, but let's understand the playing field.

You don't seem to understand the definition of socialism. It has nothing to do with spending or services. There seems to be a widespread misunderstanding that high taxes and/or government spending in a sector is socialism, when that simply isn't the case.

Spending/services is the mechanism for modern socialist-like governments.

Have mercy, I wish you hadn't have posted those details.

That's an even worse clusterfuck than I imagined.

Dude, it's not 8 billion, it's 8,000,000,000. LOOK AT ALL THOSE FUCKING ZEROES!!!

Spending has nothing to do with the definition of socialism. Services would only be true if the means of production of the services was owned and controlled by the government.

I'm not entirely sure why people get up in arms about 800 million a year on healthier school lunches, but seem to barely bat an eye over the massive defense spending that happens (and is happening currently). Oh well.

I really don't see the cost to retrofit school lunch programs to make them offer healthier food as been a waste at all, especially since it will probably have effects on creating healthier adults, which will reduce the increase in my insurance premiums and federal health care spending costs.

This has been mentioned ad naseum, but I guess I'll try it again.

No one is against healthier lunches for kids. Whether that will lead to healthier adults is debatable, but that's not even the point.

The point is, how much of that money will actually go towards accomplishing that lofty goal? How much instead will be spent on increasing bureaucracy? Jobs, pensions, office space, furniture, etc. What if I were to tell you that we could spend 800 million a year to make school lunches marginally better?

This happens so often with people who don't like big government. You assume we're necessarily against the goal of what's being proposed when much more often I would agree with the goal, but think it will go unfulfilled while wasting money.

Which it necessarily must be.

And you can't talk about services without talking about spending.

"Socialism" has a couple of different meanings. It's a political/economic philosophy, but it's also a buzz-word for the modern governments that are inspired by some version of that philosphy. I'm not making a philosophic comment. I'm just comparing the liberal European paradise governments that many here seem to long for, but are targeting the wrong things to try to get closer to those ideals. The general idea here seems to be that just spending money on programs with inspiring titles gets us where we want to be. I think reform of our government has to be way more complicated than that.

You can turn that around and wonder why so many people seem to understand that military spending is really all about economic and government growth, politically connected companies (basically the laundering of tax money), but can't recognize that the same principals drive non-military spending as well.

Because that's entirely what it seems like when you don't offer any counter proposals.

I appreciated Bucc's post and I think there is some very good thought behind it and someway to blend both approaches would be optimal. But saying this money doesn't help anything and not offer ANYTHING in response to childhood obesity isn't exactly a serious response to the problem.

Who said that?

Of course the differences being the end result ;). Inefficiency is going to happen in either case, but it is probably better to improve school lunches than starting unneccessary wars in the Middle East.

True, if that's the choice.

But do you really think kids are fat because our government doesn't spend enough money?

And the "buzzword" meaning is simply wrong. It is a bastardization of the definition. And one that many people mistakenly latch on to.

I think that unhealthy school lunches definitely increase the chances of kids getting fat. As pointed out, studies have shown that kids that eat school lunches are fatter than those than bring their own lunch from home.

Making those lunches healthier will have a very positive effect, IMO. For one, there is the caloric intake and fat content of the food they are presently injesting and secondly it'll start kids on good eating habits (if you start them on health eating from an early age, it'll carry forward).

Maybe kids wouldn't be as fat if schools would stop cutting back on recess time and PE?

Don't have a choice if they aren't state requirements and other things are.