Re: school lunches
Topics: Subsidy, Programs, Drugs
07 Mar 1995
From: "DG Ervan Darnell"
Since I'm in a trivial observation mood today, I thought that I would fire
this response off to everyone. Dan asked:
>If you run across any material on what the school lunch program really
costs,
Don't know anything right off, but will let you know what I learn.
What disgusts me is that liberals still define the terms of the debate. The
liberal position is: we need to steal money to keep poor kids from
starving. The common assumption of the conservative position is: we need
to starve poor kids to let rich people keep their money. What if the
damned thing were more honestly called the rich farmer subsidy act instead
of school lunches? The liberal position would then be: we need to tax the
poor to subsidize rich farmers. The conservative position would then be:
let people buy their own food and sell their produce as best they can. The
liberals would really have an uphill battle with that.
Even if one insists there is only one side of the issue to look at, it still
misses the point. I heard Clinton bemoaning that the Republicans were
opposed to educating children because they wanted to cut Headstart and that
the Republicans were opposed to keeping kids off drugs because they wanted
to cut D.A.R.E. funding. He cannot break the intent==effect fallacy.
Because he wants to help kids by spending tax dollars, he just assumes that
wanting to help is the same as actually helping and furthermore that no one
could ever see it any other way. Therefore, wanting to cut these programs
is wanting to hurt kids. Nonsense, even without worrying about the
question of how much rich people should be forced to subsidize poor
children, D.A.R.E. does nothing about drug use, nothing (even if we granted
this to a worthwhile goal!). The matter has been exhaustively studied (see
last month's Reason). The same goes for Headstart. It does nothing. I'm
not saying merely that it fails to be cost effective, that's a given. But
all of its effects fade out after three years. That is, the benefit is
gone by 3rd grade, long before the investment ever has a chance to pay off.
Even the NYT implicitly agreed by arguing that Headstart should be saved
because it gets kids immunized sooner. What a pathetic last ditch effort!
Ditching these turkeys is a no brainer. There is no need to even look at
the second order effects of encouraging poverty and illegitimacy.
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