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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPaul Ryan: Free School Lunch Means Poor Parents Don't Care About Kids
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Thursday that liberals don't understand disadvantaged students would rather have parents who care for them than a free lunch at school.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ryan said Republicans offer their constituents "ideas" while Democrats offer a "full stomach and an empty soul."
He then told an anecdote he said was relayed to him by Eloise Anderson, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) Department of Children and Families secretary.
(snip)
"He told Eloise he didnt want a free lunch. He wanted his own lunch, one in a brown-paper bag just like the other kids," he continued. "He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown-paper bag had someone who cared for him. This is what the left does not understand."
(end snip)
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul_ryan_free_lunch_means_parents_dont_care_for_kids
How's that reaching out to poor people thingy going for ya?
Mass
(27,315 posts)The initial reaction seems normal, but, if the rest is so sad. Shame on Ryan for this.
chillfactor
(7,566 posts)kids do not "stand out"....I see many kids in the lunch lines......and no one knows who are the rich kids and who are the poor kids....of course in my state children are not humiliated by kitchen workers throwing out a child's lunch into the garbage...our kids are fed
Mass
(27,315 posts)Aside from being very bad, their friends brought lunch and they wanted the same thing. So, the fact the kid may not have wanted a lunch from the school (particularly if too young to have a clear idea) is not surprising to me.
This said, I had not read the end. The fact that a young kid may think his parents do not love him is certainly disturbing, and the fact that Ryan uses that as an example is even worse.
Doremus
(7,261 posts)Buying the cafeteria lunch was the cool thing. Only nerds and unpopular kids carried brown bags and lunch boxes, or so I thought as a grade schooler in the '60s.
My kids never really cared either way.
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)People care that's why there are free lunches. Wing nuts don't care that's why they want to end free lunches.
atreides1
(16,046 posts)Reagan thought so...why wouldn't the current Republicans who worship St. Ronnie think the same thing?
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)He just doesn't care and his lies are a means to hold on to power.
ck4829
(34,974 posts)"If you're not rich, it's only because you're not working hard enough!"
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)1awake
(1,494 posts)That and $2.00 will feed the kid. Cute stories won't so either fund free lunch programs, or raise minimum wage so people can afford to live at the bare minimum. Stupid fucking out of touch Republicans....
SharonAnn
(13,766 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 6, 2014, 04:56 PM - Edit history (1)
Typical GOP "apples and oranges" comparison.
Of course the child wants someone to care for him/her. Does that mean we can't feed them in the meantime?
And some children do have someone who cares for them and would send something in a brown bag if they had a brown bag and could afford to fill it. So we should make sure they have a brown bag, even if it's empty, instead of feeding them?
jsr
(7,712 posts)gelsdorf
(240 posts)Fuck all those mothercockfuckingsuckers to hell and back.
That feels better now that I got that out !!
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)vankuria
(901 posts)And her mom is a single parent, who works. The free lunch program has many advantages, parents can save $ and time by not having to pack a lunch as well as kids getting a nutritious meal that isn't packed with sodium and fat.
I seriously doubt she or her classmates ever felt deprived because there moms didn't pack a "brown bag". This story is a lot of hooey and I wouldn't believe anything Paul Ryan or what any other neoncon at that stupid convention says.
By using this sick, manufactured example to make their point, they show the depths they'll sink to and they are sick bastards.
God help us all.
spanone
(135,632 posts)3catwoman3
(23,812 posts)...really, REALLY low.
Guess who REALLY has the empty soul.
CTyankee
(63,768 posts)of Jesus to feed the poor, comfort the suffering, heal the sick, shelter the homeless and in general respond with practical compassion to the needs of others less fortunate. And, in addition to the practical help, to fight to end unjust systems that perpetuate human poverty and misery.
Did he miss that memo in his catechism class?
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)and this assbite goes to church every Sunday.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Kber
(5,043 posts)but unless you think it better to let kids go hungry (and I'm sure he doesn't really think that, right?) than you can't cut the free lunch program and cut food stamps.
Unless you are insanely cruel, don't actually care about kids, or both, that is.
Sheesh!
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Its not an either/or statement.
Plenty of kids both rich and poor both brown bag it and get cafeteria food. As a regular volunteer at 3 different schools, I can tell you there's no "shame" attached to only eating cafeteria food. Some kids actually prefer it (I know several personally) even though their parents can well afford to send them to school with lunch.
My sister told her kids they had to start packing their own lunches in 6th grade, that she would ensure they had all the "fixings" but it was time for them to start preparing their own or they could get the school lunch. Guess what? They BOTH stopped brown-bagging it and got school lunches from then on, every single day.
Ryan's an asshat and creating a fictional situation that's completely detached from reality.
surrealAmerican
(11,339 posts)... that if we (as a nation) fail to provide either a living wage for the child's parents (so that they can afford to make him a bag lunch), or at the very least a school lunch, that child has a whole country that "doesn't care for him" - is that the message he want to send to needy schoolchildren?
npk
(3,660 posts)Unless you're eating it every meal of the day.
Just unbelievable the level these idiots just don't get it.
Marr
(20,317 posts)has someone who cares for them.'
There's no moral difference between Ryan's remarks and the one above-- it's just a matter of tax bracket.
kiranon
(1,727 posts)What idiotic remarks. Children can't eat ideas. They need food to grow and to learn in school. Don't understand Ryan who does not believe in abortion/birth control but wants to hurt children after they are born. Sadistic? Likes punishing children for their parents failings/troubles? Social Darwinism? What a mean little soulless man he is. I guess he didn't get a brown bag lunch when he was a kid or hated school lunches and is taking his revenge out on today's children.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)8-Year-Old Michigan Boy Helping Classmates Get a Hot Lunch
http://www.modvive.com/2014/03/05/8-year-old-michigan-boy-helping-classmates-get-hot-lunch/
When a fellow student at Challenger Elementary School received a sandwich instead of a hot meal because he didnt have enough money remaining on his school lunch account, 8-year-old Cayden Taipalus a third grader at began showing wisdom and compassion beyond his years and took swift action.
The third grader was so upset at what he had witnessed he knew he needed to do something to help.
That made me sad so I went home and I asked my mom, What can I do to help? Taipalus told WXYZ-TV.
Taipalus in response has started a fundraising campaign to help pay for lunches for students who dont have enough money for lunch on their account.
The campaign so far has raised over $14,800 on crowdfunding site FundRazr, enough to pay for 4000 reduced price lunches.
video at link
Brigid
(17,621 posts)I can't wait till the Rude One hears about this.
louis-t
(23,199 posts)For the love of God!
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,063 posts)You fucking asshole.
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt.
jmowreader
(50,447 posts)This reads like some made up bullshit to me.
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)There were a lot more kids who bought their lunch than who brought it, and the lunch-from-home contingent had lunchboxes. Very, very few brown bags in sight.
Johonny
(20,681 posts)So Paul Ryan we should naturally raise food stamp amounts and then everyone can have that home made lunch? Oh wait we can't do think either. The GOP if you're not starving then you're not American enough. Great mid-term election message there.