Congressional Republicans: Pizza is a vegetable

[The Mad Monk]

I'd rather trust local school boards than overbearing beauracracies.

[loinburger]

HC is becoming (or has already become) the MrFun of the right.

"MrFun posted in this thread? I wonder if he mentions homosexuality!" [To be fair to MrFun, he did go through a phase where every post was about "Amerindians," presumably because he thought the term was clever]

"HC posted in this thread? I wonder if he's trumpeting some far-right talking point!" [To be fair to HC, he only does this in threads that are remotely related to politics, i.e. 80-90% of the threads in the off-topic forum - it's not like he'll go into a thread on football and say "Israel should wipe out the Palestinians" or whatever - he'll reserve this for an actual thread on Israel]

[Tupac Shakur]

Why the hell would even the states do it?

This should be something decided by each school board, with local representatives only.

I'd rather trust local school boards than overbearing beauracracies.

Indeed. It's pretty easy for a handful of lobbyists in Washington to get Congress to declare pizza a vegetable. Getting tens of thousands of local school boards across the country to do the same is almost certainly impossible.

[Al B. Sure!]

Or should the state government charge most students full price, and make them free for poor kids?

This is the current arrangement.

(Actually, full price may have been subsidized, since it was as low as $2.00 as late as the early 2000's. I just know they had full price, half-price (or some intermediary), and free)

[Jon Miller]

In OR there were reduced lunches, free lunches, and 'normal' lunches. I think the majority of students got free or reduced lunches....

JM

[Dinner]

Indeed. It's pretty easy for a handful of lobbyists in Washington to get Congress to declare pizza a vegetable. Getting tens of thousands of local school boards across the country to do the same is almost certainly impossible.

True, it would be hard to get them all to declare pizza a vegetable but it would be very easy to cut the budget to nothing so that all they can afford is junk food.

[Tupac Shakur]

Why the **** would the food industry want to cut the budgets of local school boards who purchase their products?

[The Mad Monk]

Why the **** would the food industry want to cut the budgets of local school boards who purchase their products?

Thank you.

[Dinner]

I'm saying mostly conservatives, who hate spending money on poor people because it's "class warfare!" (much better to let them all starve), will keep budgets low or even reduce them further. Fresh fruits & veggies are far more expensive than junk food and that's why there is almost no fruit or veggies in school lunches but there is a ton of junk food.

On a related note, did anyone see John Stewart's "It's not Democracy, it's DiGiorno!" piece last night? Hit the nail on the head.

[The Mad Monk]

DiGiorno is a great frozen pizza.

[Tupac Shakur]

I'm saying mostly conservatives, who hate spending money on poor people because it's "class warfare!" (much better to let them all starve), will keep budgets low or even reduce them further. Fresh fruits & veggies are far more expensive than junk food and that's why there is almost no fruit or veggies in school lunches but there is a ton of junk food.

It sounds like you should spend more time working to get your local school board to increase funding for its school lunch programs. *****ing on the Internet while you wait for Washington to do the right thing isn't going to help the kids or Jamie Oliver.

[Dinner]

I really should just stop caring. I mean all of this has happened before and it will happen again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable

[Hauldren Collider]

Why the hell would even the states do it?

This should be something decided by each school board, with local representatives only.

Some states very the amount of power the school boards get. At the end of the day the power to decide this stuff should lie with the states, whether or not they delegate it, although I think they should delegate it, is their prerogative.

[Hauldren Collider]

HC is becoming (or has already become) the MrFun of the right.

"MrFun posted in this thread? I wonder if he mentions homosexuality!" [To be fair to MrFun, he did go through a phase where every post was about "Amerindians," presumably because he thought the term was clever]

"HC posted in this thread? I wonder if he's trumpeting some far-right talking point!" [To be fair to HC, he only does this in threads that are remotely related to politics, i.e. 80-90% of the threads in the off-topic forum - it's not like he'll go into a thread on football and say "Israel should wipe out the Palestinians" or whatever - he'll reserve this for an actual thread on Israel]

I fail to see how supporting what is essentially the status quo is a far right policy. The only difference between what I support here and what is currently in place is that I don't think the federal government ought to be funding school lunches. That's not particularly reactionary.

[Tupac Shakur]

I really should just stop caring. I mean all of this has happened before and it will happen again.

It will keep happening as long as statists like yourself keep giving Washington more power than it should have, making life easy for the interest groups and their lobbyists.