The Hightower Report: School lunches vs. fat-cat dinners

[TexasTowelie]

Ah, progress! In the 2012 elections, Republicans cast themselves as budget balancers by promising to whack welfare programs for the poor, snarling that such people are "takers" and "moochers."

Such vindictive sourness didn't play too well with voters, and Republicans now seem to have learned their lesson. Oh, they're still going after food stamps, school lunches, etc. with a vengeance – but this time, with a gentle, even loving tone.

The GOP's official message massagers now have their members saying that they want to "help the poor" by eliminating those programs, referring to them as soulless giveaways that sap their initiative and tether them to the cold, uncaring hand of government. The message is: We're doing this for the poor people's own good. Their chief budgeteer, Rep. Paul Ryan, trotted this theme out at a recent right-wing rally, condemning school lunches as unloving "Obamafare" plopped on plates by unsmiling cafeteria personnel: "What they're offering people is a full stomach and an empty soul," he oozed.

If that doesn't make you gag, try another subsidized lunch program that tender-hearted GOP budget whackers never mention, much less demand that it be eliminated. It's the tax subsidy for corporate meals, drinks, and entertainment. Multimillionaire CEOs can go wining and dining on your and my dime, writing off their high-dollar lunches, cocktails, dinners, and club hopping as a business expense. And expensive it is for us taxpayers – this subsidy adds up to more than $12 billion a year. And that doesn't count the human cost of executive initiative that is sapped by this giveaway and the lack of love a CEO feels from being dependent on unsmiling taxpayers.

We ought to be subsidizing healthy meals for poor people, but not a dime for fat cat CEOs dining out at Chez Gourmand.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2014-05-23/the-hightower-report-school-lunches-vs-fat-cat-dinners/

[Thinkingabout]

1. This is interesting, big meal write offs and if the truth was correctly told the

Write offs cost more in lost revenues than school lunches cost. But those who receive school lunches are the takers and not the big write off meals.

[Scuba]

2. K&R

[DhhD]

3. Does this mean that the PTA and Churches could be feeding poor children breakfast at local

schools this coming school year? Churches have already been feeding poor children during the summer when a school bus no longer provides a ride to their school and home again. Schools have the same federal summer feeding program for poor children or reduced lunches for low income, who already have been fed all school year. (New application is filled out at the beginning of each new school year.)

[johncoby2]

4. Damn is he still alive?

Dude is older than dirt. Doesnt make sense half the time.