Is there a social obligation for tax-payer funded meals at school for low income families?

We must help those who are at need.

I went hungry as a kid....noone should have to do that.

Sadly, the way our society is structured now. People are also IRRESPONSIBLY reproducing.

Individuals - not government - have a moral obligation to share their abundance with others less fortunate.
That could include offering school meals to the less fortunate.

Tax-payer funded free meals are not charity and not anyone's obligation.

If everyone were as charitable as Obama or Biden there would be a lot of hungry school children. Fortunately that is not the case.

The fact is if you have a job you pay taxes. That's just the way it works. And out of all the crap the Government could spend our tax money on I am a bit shocked that there are actually people who would bitch that part of it is spent feeding poor, hungry children.

That may have been true when Harry was president, but not today.

Democrats work for Democrat campaign donors.
Republicians work for Republican campaign donors.

If people who need help get any it is just Republicans and Democrats attempting to buy votes with tax dollars.

In general, I cannot disagree with you. But I am not prepared to completely abandon democracy. There are political figures who appear to be truly working for America and it's people, but I can't think of any who are Republicans.

The system has been corrupted by money. That's what needs to be fixed first; but the huge money involved has a stranglehold on our Republic. It will require a mass movement by the People - that's what OWS is about. The whole Christian/Conservative thing is NOT the solution . . . it feeds the problem.

Democracy is not perfect, but it is still the best system we have.
Good people working together can make it better.

Government programs spend much of their funding on overhead, including employees paid more than similar workers outside government. $100 of tax collections = $40 or less of food.

Private charities can provide the same amount of food for around $55.

Private charities and non-profit organizations are typically the way to go for this route if you ask me.

Then we agree. Have a nice day.

There is no obligation, but it is the decent thing to do. The measure of a society is in how it treats those in need. As a teacher in a low-income community, I can tell you for certain that there are kids whose major source of food is from the meals that are provided at school. I know for sure that there are kids who come in for breakfast who haven't eaten since lunch the day before. We still have a real problem with hunger here in the U.S., and it affects kids in a huge way.

Government is not society. Government has no right or obligation to sieze assets from one group and decide what other group will benefit from those assets.

Society (people) have a moral obligation to help others less fortunate, without government intervention.

I agree there is a problem. I just disagree that government is the solution.

As civilized humans, you don't think we should have an obligation to feed hungry kids? Too many ppl nowadays have the every man for himself mindset. It isn't healthy for the soul. I see what you are saying ... we should want to want to....but, too many would rather buy a Yorkie.

I believe we have a moral and ethical obligation to do everything we can to make sure that no one in our society goes hungry. I support using tax dollars to do so. I just don't think it's an OBLIGATION. We should want to do it, and if the majority of Americans don't want to, then we should not. It would be a very poor reflection on us as a people, and I would be ashamed of my country, but we deserve to have choices, even if one of the options is something I find despicable.

you said .... I believe we have a moral and ethical obligation to do everything we can to make sure that no one in our society goes hungry.
isn't that a social obligation....per the question?
i think we are agreeing here.

The difference is that I believe it is an individual obligation. As a society, we make collective decisions. But yes, we do agree.

yes

NO absolutly not and whats more the meals served in schools are mostly wasted. Currently one of the districts where I live has a summer meals program for the students who over the school year was on a free or reduced program it is open to all students age 3 to 18 and 2 meals per day are served to about 830 kids.
This program is run through DONATIONS it doesn't come from the district budget.
As well throughout the school year all districts in my area are part of a private charity started locally called backpack meals in which students who are signed up (and tere are no restrictions or needs based qualifications) are sent home every friday with a backpack of food, enough for them to eat 2 meals per day. they return the backpacks on monday and get them again on friday.
This program is funded completely by DONATIONS.

There may or may not be a "moral" obligation to help children in this nation not go hungry but the idea there is a "socical" obligation which must be met through forced "charity" aka tax payers is not only a lie but it is a fraud perhaps even thieft. Government will never be able to do as well at caring for people as people will be able to do it is just that simple

In fact a case can be made that it hurts them.

I clicked no. MN energy has a section on every bill you can check called "heat share" that we can voluntarily donate to.

Americans out give everyone and if we could do this by choice, we are a first class nation. The act of force doesn't make us any more civilized than anybody else.

People in general need to do for themselves as much as they can.

That is what the Church and non-profit food banks are for!

Not only a social obligation but a moral one! It is for the benefit of children that are in need through no fault of their own. If you took but a fraction of the defense budget and placed it here there would be no funding issue at all.

For some kids, that is the only meals they get.

This is another reason to get the goddam gov't out of the schools. These "programs " take on lives of their own

I think we have a social obligation to feed lunch to children whose parents do not feed them. I also think we have a social responsibility to remove and find better homes for children whose parents have demonstrated that they will never properly care for their children.

I draw the line at providing breakfast and dinner for kids at school. If a parent is so poor that they are not providing at least two meals a day, the children need to be removed from the home. If it's a short-term problem (health problems, can't find a job, etc.), there should be other resources available for awhile.

Something in the neighborhood of 20% of school age children in America are not being provided with enough food at home. Removing them from the home might be a solution, but to relocate 20% of the children in our nation would be a monumental effort. Add to that the likelihood that much of the problem will be in clusters, and you'll have a real problem.

For example, 70% of the students in the high school where I teach qualify for free breakfast and lunch at school. If we needed to relocate 70% of the over 2000 students in my school, where would they go? There aren't enough families in our community to take them all. So they'd have to be moved to other communities, causing crowding in those schools (while our school had empty classrooms).

There should be other resources available, but right now, there are not. So we stick with what we have. It might not be perfect, but it is saving many kids from going hungry.

Good points, but here the problem I have...far too many kids are classified as "at-risk" and therefore eligible for free & reduced lunch who frankly are not truly at risk. I'll give you an example. My sister and her husband were surprised when they enrolled their twins for kindergarten and were offered free and reduced lunch classification. The reason given? Because the kids were twins and were therefore considered "at-risk". No questions were asked about the family income. No testing was done to find out if there were developmental problems. They were simply assumed to be "at-risk" because they were multiples. The school would have benefited from additional "special ed" funding and "free and reduced meals" funding from the state and federal government had my sister accepted their classification. We discovered that this is not an uncommon thing. About half of the kids at the elementary school come from homes where the parents are not married, so they are offered "free and reduced" meals, regardless of family income.

I guess I would just like to see better oversight of the determination process of free and reduced lunch programs. I get frustrated when so much tax money is wasted when there are really truly need kids out there who do in fact need the help.

Children need care. If they are not getting it at home, they need to get it somewhere else.

We need to help these kids if we want them to get involve in healthy society.

Yes, and also a human obligation.

And why this doesn't carry-over for adults is beyond me.

how about we abolish all food stores and restuarants ..
the gov't will give us the food ??
the food will be free ,, LOL>...

Lame try...nice straw man though.

straw ?

Google it