So nearly 16 million kids are food insecure in the U.S.
Does that bother anyone in Washington? I don’t know, but it
seems that with all the moves to cut food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, SNAP) and virtually none to improve it, add to school lunch
programs (also under attack by state and federal budget cutters), or develop
some other way to help kids and families who really need help we're moving in the wrong direction.
We need to figure out what is important to us as a country.
It’s admittedly not an easy list to assemble and organize, in large part
because Washington declines to tackle some of the big budget “entitlements,”
like Social Security and Medicare. We need to evaluate our military spending,
foreign aid, our tax structure and corporate tax rates and loopholes, as well
as how to keep companies from shipping factories and jobs overseas. The list
goes on and on, of course, with millions of items buried in thousand-page
documents senators and representatives don’t understand (that why they have
staff people).
Obviously, it’d be nice to fund everything anyone can think
of, but we can’t. Where do we begin?
Let’s assume Washington
is filled with big-thinking politicians with a long view and who are willing to
lay out plans for years instead of months. Though states are responsible for
their school budgets, states get money from the federal government as well, and
without a combination of state and federal funding and initiative, any moves to
solve food insecurity and improve school meal programs will stall
I'd argue that feeding kids and families should be a national priority. But it's a big expense and one that will cause a lot of politicians to move past it. So how can we reshape the process a bit?
Let’s say we need a strong, quick response military, but do
we need a continually bigger and bigger one? It’s time to offer buyouts for
those who want to take early retirement and cut total spending 10 percent. Can we afford to grow the military budget by double-digits every year when the economy is barely growing at 2 percent?
One of the problems is that we have delayed, stalled and put off long-term planning for short-term fixes, so costs tend to build. It's happening with military spending and it's happening with things like bridge, rail and highway upgrades and improvements. We need to take care of challenges on a regular basis, not wait until they pile up into a crisis.
We need to adjust Social Security, and change the numbers,
not for those at or close to retirement, but those, say, under 40. Push
retirement age for those people to 68 years old and allow larger tax write offs
and bigger contributions into non-government retirement programs. Eliminate the
salary cutoff for Social Security contributions and have higher-wage earners
(and their employers) continue to contribute a percentage of their income into
the system.
We also need to mandate that corporations fully fund their current pension liabilities. Forbes says that our largest corporations are no better than 75 percent funded and that rising health care costs (which are not pre-funded) and longer lifespans could cost corporations trillions over the next several years . . . That's trillions that is unfunded. A company goes under with an unfunded pensions, those retirees and soon-to-be-retirees are left without the retirement funding they expected. And deserve. If that happens, the government will be on the hook for more benefits for those people that would not have been needed otherwise.
Congress insists the Postal Service pre-fund all it's pension liabilities 100 percent on advance every year (a somewhat unreasonable edict) , but has no requirements for large corporations.
Lower the corporate tax rate, but eliminate any and all tax
advantages for companies moving operations overseas and using overseas
operations as a cover to dodge paying taxes here.
All right . . . I’m not expert, but why can’t we look at
some of these things and decide we may have to change the way we operate our
government to meet our ongoing social and economic issues.
As for some priorities, let’s start (since the subject of
the series is food insecurity) with making sure every kid and family in this
country has access to a stable food supply and meals. In many areas, schools
offer breakfast and lunch to students. I think all schools should offer a free
meal program to each and every student who wants it. Even with the average
school meal costing less than $2 on average, that’s a huge expense.
Let's make sure we do everything possible to fill food banks and help soup kitchen stay stocked . . . Churches are often in the forefront of this, and we have to support whatever programs work, and start to link them within states and state-to-state, so we can see where the needs are and where the most help is needed. Link grocery stores, bakeries and other food producers and retailers so consumers know they are part of a national network and consumers can be connected locally and nationally.
We also need to make regulations easier for restaurants,
supermarkets and others to donate left over and expiring food to food banks or
soup kitchens. Now, many states say that can’t be done and expiring food needs
to be thrown out. So if a restaurant, or hospital or caterer has three-quarters
of a hotel pan of lasagna left over, they have to throw it out. We also need to
improve our food supply system so “non-perfect” products go to food banks
instead of being destroyed.
If we decide it’s unacceptable to have kids going hungry
here, then we’ll change it. Kids need to be a priority, and feeding them is
fundamental to that. It’s at least as fundamental as a strong military,
repairing bridges, roads and rails, or debating public health and health care.
Strong families make a strong country, but without food,
what chance do those millions of families and those millions of kids really
have in today’s world?
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