Feeding kids, not giving kickbacks

We can solve childhood hunger by simply

“While our TX Agricultural Commissioner, Sid Miller, divides and distracts by Tweeting out, “Public education is a closed socialist system…” the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, gets $4.9 billion in publicly-funded kickbacks. The funds are there to end childhood hunger, we just have to stop giving it to the Greedy Few.”

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What is the largest restaurant chain in the U.S.? (Hint – it’s not McDonalds). The over 100,000 school cafeterias dwarf all other restaurants and serve 30 million children daily. In Texas, that number is over 3 million per day. Although not technically a chain, school cafeterias rely heavily on public funding.

As we celebrated National School Lunch Week recently, I thought about an issue close to the heart of most Americans — Childhood hunger.

We can solve childhood hunger. We just have to stop giving kickbacks to the Greedy Few.

Childhood Hunger

According to Feeding America, over 1.6 million Texas kids suffer from hunger — about 1 in 4 children. I can think of no greater disgrace than to allow for that many Texas children to needlessly suffer in one of the richest states in the USA. 

As a former Kindergarten teacher, I know the importance of properly feeding children. Texas farmers and ranchers are eager and capable of feeding every child in Texas, but our political “leaders” lack the spine and the heart to fight for Texas kids. 

Though this has yet to be seen, I fear that Abbott’s school voucher scam may worsen things. Abbott’s “School vouchers” scam should be called what it is: defunding public schools. As rural and other schools are forced to shut down or be cut back due to being defunded, I fear many of these cuts will slash school food programs.

School Lunch Debt

According to the Education Data Initiative, the total school meal debt in Texas is $299,557,608 — the most out of any state in the union. This means that, on average, out of the 1,207 school districts in Texas, there’s $248,000 in school lunch debt per district in Texas (again, this is just on average). 

I know that in Lampasas ISD, a small and rural district, we had about $5,000-7,000 the last time we checked. Under my direction, the Lampasas County Democratic Party offered to pay off a sizable chunk of the debt, but the ISD sadly refused to accept our check. They called it “unfair” to pay off only some but not all, which, in our opinion, is like saying if I can’t get a flu shot, then I don’t want any medical treatment at all. 

This debt is often used to shame children, lessen the quality and health of their food by forcing them only to eat a cheese or ham sandwich, and trap parents in the never-ending cycle of personal debt. 

Polls show that 92% of Texans believe that “no child should be in debt to their schools for meals.”

What I find most frustrating about this is that feeding children is NOT rocket science. I have a family member who works at a company that builds Space Force / NASA rocket engines. That is difficult. Feeding kids is not. The food is there, Texas farmers are more than capable of producing enough, and we have people very capable in logistics to get the produce to where it needs to be. While I would not call this “easy,” it is, by a long shot, not rocket science. The only things we’re missing are the political leaders to ensure the funding is there. Too many of our so-called “leaders” in the GOP-monopolized state of Texas would rather give kickbacks to their megadonors than help everyday Texans.

Resilient Food Systems

Schools purchase a lot of food. When they buy from local growers, they also build our local food system and provide healthy, fresh food for our children. This also reinforces our supply chains to prevent disruptions. 

When Winter Storm Uri hit Texas, many trucks transporting dairy products from the mega-producers were too big to travel on the icy roads safely. Thankfully for the good people of Waco, a nearby family dairy used smaller trucks for their distribution, so they could provide dairy products to Waco during that time.

Imagine if all of our supply chains were strong enough for all food products in all parts of Texas. Corporatists often talk about “efficiency” in their talking points, usually to justify mergers and monopolization. While efficiency is essential up to a point, resiliency is equally, if not more, necessary, especially in our food system. 

Supporting local Texas farmers and ranchers isn’t just good for the local community, I would argue it’s vital for our food security. A school food system that fully utilizes family farms and ranches is an excellent way to build resilience in our food system. 

Conclusion

All Texans want to provide the best for their families and their communities. Whether someone is rural or urban, white, black, or brown, conservative or progressive or somewhere in the middle, we all want kids and our communities to thrive. Polls back this up: 95% say that elected officials in Texas should do more to end childhood hunger, and 97% say that ending childhood hunger in Texas should be a shared, bipartisan goal.

But instead of taking action, our political leaders in Texas divide and distract us with “culture war” issues so they can then give kickbacks to their mega-donors and the Greedy Few. When we Texans come together as a people to reject scapegoating and demand action, we can create a Texas where no child goes hungry and our communities thrive. 

While I appreciate the efforts and dedication of many school districts to resolve this issue, it is too important for our government to ignore it. Case in point, while our TX Agricultural Commissioner, Sid Miller, divides and distracts by Tweeting out, “Public education is a closed socialist system…” the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, gets $4.9 billion in publicly-funded kickbacks.

Mr. Twitter isn’t the only one of the Greedy Few who receives kickbacks. If seeing is believing, below are just a few examples of where our public tax dollars are going. You’ll see the company name, the year the subsidy was given (i.e., kickback), and the amount. All of these amounts are exclusively for Texas and may include a mix of local, state, and federal kickbacks.

Behold, your tax dollars at work:

Amazon.com — 2012 — $269,000,000

Anadarko Petroleum — 2012 — $175,000,000

Cabela's — 2004 — $113,800,000

Federal Express — 1996 — $250,000,000

Motiva Enterprises — 2006 — $257,400,000

Nebraska Furniture Mart (owned by Berkshire Hathaway) — 2011 — $802,000,000

RadioShack — 2002 — $96,000,000

Samsung — 2006 — $233,400,000

Summit Power Group — 2011 — $91,600,000

Texas Instruments — 2003 — $600,000,000

Toyota — 2003 — $133,000,000

RED Development — 2007 — $68,000,000

Toyota — 2014 — $55,300,000

Facebook — 2015 — $146,700,000

Exxon Mobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. — 2017 — $460,000,000

Aviall Services — 2001 — $145,000,000

Tesla — 2020 — $64,533,663

Samsung Electronics — 2021 — $1,185,920,000

Texas Instruments — 2021 — $2,357,472,509

GlobiTech, Incorporated — 2022 — $619,092,059

OCI Beaumont — 2022 — $362,970,582

Wurldwide LLC — 2023 — $687,600,000

Endeavor Real Estate Group — 2021 — $354,614,211

Tierra Blanco Solar, LLC — 2024 — $508,412,807

The funds are there to end childhood hunger, we just have to stop giving it to the Greedy Few. 

Do you agree? Take my survey below to let me know if you think we should continue giving kickbacks to the few or if we should prioritize helping the many.

As a side note: If you want to read about initiatives that mesh these goals, Dani Nierenberg at Food Tank has identified an awesome array of programs around the county that ensure no student is hungry and that help cafeterias purchase healthy foods locally. 

For today, I challenge you to find out how the schools in your neighborhoods are finding innovative ways to support local growers, end hunger, &/or how much student food debt exists in your ISD.  Leave a comment to let me know!