There’s No Such Thing As Free School Lunch
There’s an old saying that I think is relevant to this topic: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. It means that no matter what is being offered to you, there is always some price that you have to pay at some point. It’s a warning to not be overly trusting when it comes to things that are too good to be true, because they often prove to not be.
Since Gov. Walz signed the bill into law allowing free school breakfasts and lunches, the cost has skyrocketed. The first problem is that it’s for every student, not just a needs-based system. So a family that has a six-figure income will be getting free meals courtesy of the state. The second problem is that more students are eating in the cafeteria. There is a 30% increase in students eating lunch in the cafeteria and a 50% increase in students eating a cafeteria breakfast. People who could afford to eat are now taking advantage of the system. This leads to the third and overall problem: it’s way more expensive than first estimated. This year cost taxpayers $81 million, and an estimated $95 million in the subsequent two years.
The school lunch problem is a microcosm of how the DFL does policy. They take something that sounds nice in theory, implement it without thinking, and then it ends up being a disaster. We saw it just recently with Walz’s tax rebate nightmare saga, and now we expect to see the same with our kid’s school lunches. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, someone’s gotta pay.
The idea of free school lunches is one that everyone can get behind in theory. We all want to see children fed, don’t we? The problem doesn’t come from the actual food itself, but the problem comes from how the state wants to do it. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware of how bad our economy has gotten in recent years. The DFL party has taken control of every branch of Minnesota’s government and now we’re living in a state with ridiculous taxes, high inflation, and an administration that doesn’t want to stop its spending spree. When it comes to the average Minnesotan taxpayer, they can barely afford to feed themselves. Time and time again, the DFL expects Minnesotans to foot the bill for their expensive and unrealistic policies.