Hey, folks, are your elementary or high school kids hungry, Well maybe they should get a job so that they could eat lunch at school. It sounds ridiculous, right, Well not according to one Georgia congressman, I can't even begin to tell you how baffled I am by this whole thing. But Helen, maybe you can start us off. What the hell is going on here?
So and taking the food out a mouse of babes News Republican congress and richmondcormick basically said children who are receiving free school lunches shouldn't as they should be able to work. Apparently, this real life supervilion things that child labor laws are bad and probably merely a suggestion, And it's forwartan.
We see where the money is being spent.
Rather than going to headstart, kids which are mostly preschoolers, get breakfast the subplemental food programs few millions of poor children around the United States. But I guess second graders should good jobs picking berries. According to McCormick, this is so disgusting to defend. I am starting to wonder if these politicians have a black void where their.
Heart should be.
It seems the right forgot Jesus's message of feeding the hungry and charitable works. I get another example of how the almighty dollar dollar is the real god Republicans worship.
This story is.
FROMBC News by Rebecca Shabad on January twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. And I'm going to say it, I hope this guy gets murder hornets in his pee hole because this is just terrible.
And it's just terrible.
Yeah.
Yeah, this guy is fucking stupid.
AJ There really are no words for stories like this, Okay, Like he's claiming that the reasons he thinks that's a good idea is because you know, it's going to give the government a chance to see where the money is really spent, as Helen mentioned earlier.
But the thing is.
That this money is being spent on things like head start, right. This takes care of kids between birth and age five. It's because for low income families that need this support. Yeah, obviously it is giving kids that are older up to you know, they come out of high school three meals. What is the problem with that? Are suddenly going to put like an age requirement for you know, like hey, at age fourteen, you can no longer get free lunch.
What are they going to do?
I don't know what they're going to do, but I don't think that this is a legitimate stance. Let's just face it. This guy is a Republican. He has been threatened by Elon Musk and unelected. I don't know what to call him. I almost said official, but he's just an unelected guy hanging out around the new president, the again president who has threatened all other Republican congressman and senators to go along with what he wants or else
he will fund a primary against them. So Elon Musk and his cronies want to take away food programs in schools, and this congressman has no choice. If he wants to keep his seat and keep his power and keep the coffee warm right where it is and not make any changes and just be there, has to go along with it. And so he's coming up with this stupid justification that an adult should not be repeating like this is asinine, this is unheard of, and I don't believe he actually
believes this stuff. Rob does McCormick actually feel this way or is his argument just another Republican puppet string.
I ultimately have no way of knowing, and in many ways it doesn't matter because it's what he's saying, so that's what he's doing. So something that is hard for me me personally rob is knowing that people lie to me. Like I was, just when people say things, I just assume that they're telling me the truth. Is why would I assume that people lie things? So I just assume that when people speak, they're telling me a thing they
think is true or wish we're true. So if he says this is what he's thinking should happen, then then I am actually obligated to believe that this is his stance. If it's not, then we have two problems. Not one it's just dumb. This is this is actually like going a couple articles pack back, whereas boy howdy, isn't inconvenient that every study shows that if you are poor and uneducated,
you're more likely to be religious. And one of the best ways to get people into education is if we can feed them, because we in America have built a society where the parents have to go to work while the while the kids go get educated, So ideally they get food like that that's an important thing for those families, is that's a meal they don't have to supply, so I mean, I grew up with with free lunch, and
free lunch is useful. There's more we can talk about with like his employ but it's just I'm going to assume that he means what he means what he means what he says, because it would be dishonest. Not too I hope he's not dishonest.
Well, I don't have any hope that that is that is the case, but you know, I will shift to Helen and ask what are your perspectives on what's happening here and more specifically talk to us about the problems that the government is actually causing.
So so many problems. It's a lot of shock and awe going on right now. So because this is a microcosm again of a wider thing that's going on, he says something completely acid eye, supervillain shit. That's fine, And it's not that I have a problem of looking at budgets and seeing if you know, money can be better utilized.
We can all agree that's a reasonable thing to do.
But not not taking food away from like meals on wheels and head started wick these programs.
And it's not like I.
Don't know what he thinks these kids are getting like, they're not eating like steak dinners.
This is free school lunch. This is wig programs.
So parents getting like peanut butter and peas and milk to feed their toddlers.
This is uh. You know, elderly people that are stuck in their.
Homes cannot work anymore and rely on this government programs to bring them food.
And guess what, We're human beings. We need food. We need food to survive.
This has nothing to do with trying to, you know, make it more efficient and look at where you know, where the money is going, because they bitch about welfare coings. But they create the problem, you know, they make They make it so inflation goes up.
We just do not go up.
People don't have access to the healthcare that they need, so they might not have access to things like birth control, and then they're lion the government to take care of them. And this is not a shamed thing. This is just creating the problem, you know, and that that's the issue. And what happens is that then they get mad for the problem they created and blame it on the victim. It's victim blaming and that's what McCormick is doing. He's blaming it on poor people. But guess what why are
people poor? People poor?
It is because the system is rigged so the.
People cannot get up into a better place of economic opportunity. But regardless, that is not an excuse to take food away from children people.
I don't mean anybody.
I will keep I will keep parketing back to the point that people that are overly religious come for the kids first. You know, the Republicans, Conservatives in this country are closely associated, openly uh with far right Christianity, far
right Christian nationalism. And there's really no difference if it's a you know, some foreign religious government that is affecting children, or if it's right here in the United States, when you've got religious audiologues in your government, the same things bound to happen.
A J.
I want to know how do policies like these affect Republicans' own constituents.
Well, if you look at the voting history of supporters of Conservative elect officials, they are usually people in rural areas, in relatively poor areas, so they are getting government assistance as well. And this guy here went on a really weird tangent during his speech about this topic, he said that RFK is all about producing not just calories but nutrition.
I don't I don't really know why he was talking about that, but one of his quotes was that when in history have we had our poorest people also be or fastest people. That's for the first time here in America traditionally or poorest people living live very skinny and very under nutrition.
Whatever.
What the fact that that quote means, He's basically implying that poor people are lazy for taking government assistance and fat because they're getting free breakfast and lunch like it.
It's wild to me.
That his supporters support that kind of person with those type of ideologies.
That is actlutely going to affect them.
And I think he was alluding to the fact that they're fat because they're lazy. That's what I got out of that, And so aj I initially was going to see this question up for you, but I want to kick that over to Robs since you kind of already
started down this past. But Rob on the on the note that he says that people are there are the people now are the fattest and poorest, I would say there's certainly a difference between an adult abusing or being hooked on government assistants, which is what I think that he's alluding to. But setting kids up for success, I mean, that's a completely different thing. That is not we can't just take high school kids and say, well, they're like
these people that abuse the system. What's your take on that difference and where he gets it wrong.
So just a couple of quotes from him. Before I was even thirteen years old, I was picking berries in the field before child labor laws that precluded that. I was a paperboy. And when I was in high school, I worked my entire way through and like cool, Like that's like literally all I've got to say that is like cool, you did jobs, But like it very much comes off as I got spanked and I turned out fine vibe where it's like, well I did it, so
why don't you. Here's one more he says, versus just giving a blanket rule that gives all kids lunches in high school who are capable of going out and actively getting a job and doing something that makes them have value. Here's the thing where I'm probably going to be unpopular with some people. I actually don't hate the idea of employing kids. And I'm going to say that very specifically, and like, I don't want him to go out in the coal coal mines, right, and we don't need dangerous things.
But we all have like classroom helpers for a reason. Kids want to help. They want to do things when I teach my staff, because I work with kids when I teach my staff. If there's a kid who's like board, like, give them a job, they want to go out and do stuff. And in this specific quote, he's talking about high schoolers, people who already go out and get a jobs. But I want to harp on a very specific thing. He says, going out and actually getting a job and
doing something that makes them have value. Why do they need to have a job to have value. I agree that a person with a job gains more monetary value, but like the fact that in his mind right, the way you speak betrays the way you think these people lack value minus a job. This is not just a school lunch problem.
Yeah, well this is a larger problem. So I would say not only not only is it one of these things where he says, well, I was spanked, and you know, to use your example, I was spanked and I turned out fine. I don't think he turned out fine. I don't think he turned out fine at all. I think that he is in He backed himself into a corner and just kind of kept talking because he's dependent on
keeping whatever position he has. And this idea that making a job or getting a job will make children better off. I don't think that you can force a child that's supposed to be in school, supposed to be learning, into a position where they're not where they're going to be busier, where they're going to not have as much time for their studies, and expect them to be better off. They may end up in another forty years telling people that they should give their kids jobs picking berries instead of
learning arithmetic. Right. Yeah.
To be clear, my point is like, if they want to go get a job, absolutely, dude, that should not be because you have to. It's because they personally have the ambition to do so.
And I have no issue there with that, except the issue I do have is with him saying, well, everybody should do exactly what I did because that's the way things should be. Well, that speaks to a mindset where there's no growth over generations, and and hele and I want to turn it to you. Is the government at this man being a government official or an elected representative kind of giving these you know, giving these tidbits of knowledge,
if you will. Is the government responsible for leading a culture shift?
Yeah, because it trickles down like if anyone, if anyone is in a position of power and they have influence, and if people don't have their thinking braids on, and for people that want to like pass the book very easily, because it's very easily to pass back to light and say things, I'd like you as welfare queens or you know, people taking advantage of the system, blah blah. That's a very easy thing to say, rather than for the government to take any sort of personal response in our current
administration of what the actual problem is. And that is the issue that we're facing. That's what that's what we're looking at, you know, because from my perspective, the government.
Is there to serve us.
We elect them, we work, we pay taxes that pay their salaries.
Right, absolutely, you work.
For me, okay, And if I think that children and the elderly should get food, because most people who have a kind heart will recognize that not everybody can work, but the basic human.
One of your basic human rights is food.
I don't mind paying extra money for people to eat, and we already have so much food waste in this country and so many problems. That's a a whole other thing that this leads into, also issues with food deserts, and the fat shaming is gross. I'm sorry that just because you're overweight does not mean you don't get to eat. I'm sorry, that's not fair, and he's and like the idea,
Like I worked in high school. I had a job, you know, and my parents were basically like, hey, we give you food, clothing, and shelter, but if you want to do anything extra.
You got to start to work. But I was fifteen, sixteen years old when you usually start working.
And that's because I wanted to, you know, my parents wanted to, and so kind some kind of work ethic into me.
Because I needed the one dollar pizza on Fridays, right, you guys had Pizzaday?
Yeah, exactly, And also I want and also I wanted to go to Dunkin Donuts and buy coffee down the streets at my school.
I have regardless of that.
But that's normal teenager shit like this, Like we were saying like eight year olds need to go out in the fields and pick berries, like there's something very fundamentally wrong with you. So and also too, there just one more point, there are children out there that do work. We do have child slavery in this country where like immigrant children are forced to work and they are abused.
So that guy can go fuck himself because the things that he says is completely acidyne.
It's going to lead to abuse and lead to problems. So again, fuck this guy.
And there's a certain there's a whole safety issue that we could do another show on. I mean, I have a three year old and a sixteen year old and I wouldn't well, especially the three year old, but I wouldn't even put the sixteen year old out in a field pick and berries. I wouldn't give her a job recommendation until she can learn to clean her room. That's a different story altogether. But you know the thing is, though,
I don't want my kids to be in danger. You know, my daughter just started working, and I was very involved in helping her find something that would be a good first job. You know, I didn't just throw her out and make her spend her money on school lunch, which we're already paying for To Helen's point, you know, when it comes to spending money, though, I mean, we've got this guy saying that we should not be and to AJ's statistics, because Aja, I'm going to ask you to
speak on your statistics in a moment. But for the three dollar lunch, which is mind boggling to me. When I was younger, it was not three.
Dollars, it was it.
I think maybe if the most I saw was like a dollar fifteen cents, but you know that was twenty five years ago. Now it's what three dollars? Okay, So this guy doesn't want to give three dollars lunches to children, but he's okay with I mean, let's face it, we've had some remarks come out of the Executive Branch about the United States owning gaza and rebuilding gaza, sending immigrants on eight hundred thousand dollars military flights out of the country.
I mean, is this the kind of money that's okay being spent and then the taking care of the kids is not okay? That would be my question to him, how do you juggle those two priorities? And AJ, you've got some statistics that you wanted to share, and so on that note, please feel free.
I mean, you have to remember that these programs also include things like lunch during the summer, and a lot of these kids actually do need that, and if they don't get that summer lunch, they're probably not going to get lunch. Like there are about twenty million kids that are in these reduced lunch or free lunch programs. That's
over half of the all public school students. And like you said, you know, the average cost to make the lunch is three dollars, So I don't know how much they charge exactly, but that's the cost.
To make it.
And this guy's just claiming that he wants to save money for you know, like the whole thing that Elon Musk is doing, so that that's the main goal, save the government money. The problem with us is that there is so much other ways that we can look at. Each agency gets a different budget. Let's say the military gets billions billions in budget. If by the end of the year they don't spend all of that budget, whatever isn't spent goes back to the federal government. It doesn't
stay with the military. It's not like a rollover amount so if the next year they see, oh, hey, you know you didn't spend twenty billion of your budget last year, then this year we're going to give you twenty billion less. So what do they do at the end of the year when they see they have quite a few billions left, They spend that quickly. And so some of the statistics that I found say that in September twenty twenty four, the military went on one of these spending sprees which
did not cover their regular spending throughout the year. Right, Like they had already spent everything they needed to spend throughout the year.
Right.
They spent one hundred and three million dollars on different types of meat, including sixteen million on Reby' steak, six million in lobster tails, one hundred thousand on blueberries and ice cream and donuts, five millions on apple products, two hundred and eleven million on new furniture. This was in one month. I'm not talking of throughout the year.
One month.
Thirty six thousand on car foot rests.
So tell me again how a three dollars meal a day for an underprivileged kid is a waste like we can afford to field to feed our military and appreciate them throughout the year.
That's that's great.
I love that because they need that moral boost.
Let's do that.
But if you have all the all those billions left at the end of the year, don't go waste them on love s terancetaks that are probably going to get thrown in in the shrush eventually.
Like, let's put that to our fitting the kids.
Yeah, I see your point. You know, there is UH, there's there's certainly cuts that can be made across the board. But I don't think that somebody who supports successive spending in other areas should be taking spending away in the areas that where it's most necessary. And I think that that is the gist of this. I don't know what the hell he's talking about. Sounds like a guy that just is going down uh, is going down a path that he can't justify, and he's grasping its straws to
do it. Rob. I'm going to give you closing cor and then we're gonna wrap this segment up. What do you most want to say as we close out?
I mean, it's a slightly different point from everything, but you know, I suppose I suspect one of the reasons why he was fat shaming people is probably because it's actually probably true that some of our poorest people are also some of the most overweight. However, I bet that probably has a lot to do with the subsidies that allow for highly processed foods withos consyrup that being the most affordable pieces of food and not actually nutritional things like the rest of the world.
That's it, yep, yep. Yeah. So, I mean I think that was a good thing to throw in there, because we did kind of just gloss over the fact that health is also a major concern and we haven't even begun to discuss that. You know, forget about three yeah right, I mean, we got forget about the three to four hour lunches. What are we putting into our people? That's the other thing that has to be considered. And you know,
our kids need to be taken care of anybody else. Helen, you look like you're you're itching to say something, please to close this out.
Like the main thing I want to point out that also this comes down to lack of empathy, that your personal experience is not everybody's experience, and the fact that certain people on the right, like McCormick, lack personal, lack epathy for their fellow man. And you can't go, you know, shout about Jesus and how much you loved him, because if Jesus was really alive and was a real person, he would be disgusted at this behavior.
You don't have time for that either.
Man.
That's what I'm saying.
No, no, I'm saying no, no, no empathy, be kind, that's what I'm asking.
I'm not cutting you off. I'm saying, like, just like Rob said, man, what an untouched portion of this line of thinking that we haven't even begun to tackle. I mean, forget about everything we talked about, and let's just say, hey, you're a Christian nationalist, what would Jesus do? It's it's it's insane. But thank you guys for a wonderful discussion. Really had a lot of fun.
Folks.
That's gonna do it for us this week. Tune in Monday when you've got a whole new cast of characters to take you through more underwhelming, overwhelming stories. I don't know, you be the judge. Keep tuning into nonprofits.
Thanks