Julian Sanchez makes a sensible observation about the school vending machine debate currently occupying several left wing blogs, such as that of colleague Matthew Yglesias:
I also think they're misunderstanding Dan Mitchell's objection—which, in fairness, may be because the headline reference to the "nanny state" in the headline is a bit of a red herring. I think the point is that the content of school lunch menus, while both important and fit for government determination, is not really a federal issue. The momentous question of whether the cafeteria at PS 23 serves Coke or Twinkies can probably be left to the bright lights of the state legislatures—maybe even the local school board.But hey, since this apparently is a federal question, we may as well elevate the rhetoric to match. Scale disagreements of this kind (at least, assuming Matt or Ezra really do want to insist that the decision take place at the federal level) say something about how seriously you take value pluralism. If you think it's obvious that there's an Objectively Correct Answer to any question, and that we know it—should little Bobby be allowed candy, or kept to a strict wheat germ regimen?—then allowing local variation just means giving the rubes a chance to fuck it up. If you think there are genuinely different and valid value weightings yielding different tradeoffs, or opportunities to learn from variety and experimentation, you're more sanguine about decentralization.
Of course, sometimes the values are large enough and the lessons of experience clear enough that I, too, opt against letting the rubes fuck it up: free expression, equality under the law, due process. But I'm thinking school lunches aren't quite up there.
Matt Zeitlin responds:
While I think that some decisions should be more local, the question of what’s in school lunches requires looking at the status quo situation. And in the status quo, schools are selling crappy food through vending machines, snack bars and “a la carte food lines.” And they aren’t doing anything to change it. Moreover, the federal government is already heavily involved in school food , because cafeteria food programs already need to meet Department of Agriculture nutrition requirements. So there’s a trade-off, either we can continue with certain health standards being applied in a piecemeal manner across the country, depending on the attitudes of local school boards and states, or we can just make the standards stricter now, for everyone. I guess one of the things that makes me a liberal as opposed to a libertarian is that I prefer the latter and don’t really see what’s so offensive about a centralized dictate — especially as opposed to the alternative.
For some reason, this puts me in mind of the discussions one hears about birth control and child labor in the developing world: to wit, there seems to be an assumption that people in far off places, particularly ones with funny religions and/or skin colors, do not have children for the same reasons that the right-thinking folks around here do. Because they seem to regard their children as some sort of undifferentiated herd animals, rather than loving the heck out of those adorable little tykes, we need to step in and make some decisions about how they should go about this reproduction business.
The libertarian approach is to assume that those people probably feel the same way about their kids that you do about yours, and that seemingly inexplicable behavior, such as sending a child to knot rugs in a rundown factory building, probably has some deeper motivation than "Why the hell not?" And indeed, it turns out that child labor is almost invariably a result of severe familial economic distress, and that the first thing that families "purchase" as soon as they get a smidgen of economic security is their childrens' retirement from the labor force. That's why laws outlawing child labor, in areas where child labor is actually common, seem to result in a lot of dead children, or children shifted to worse labor than knotting rugs, such as the unregulated sex trade.
So I assume, too, that the people on school boards throughout the country are probably mostly people who have a more than passing interest in producing a fine, healthy crop of future Americans. I therefore ask myself, "Why are all these people installing vending machines in schools?" My admittedly sketchy research indicates that the answer is not "Because they love PepsiCo and obesity, and hate kids!" Rather, they seem to be afraid that the kids will just go off the school grounds and stuff themselves with even crappier food at fast food restaurants--or in the case of schools that are providing a lot of free breakfasts and lunches, that the kids will reject healthier options and become malnourished. Nor is this an insane fear, since schools that ban vending and unhealthy lunch options seem to often end up with widespread civil disobedience. And of course, if the kids are going to eat crap anyway, the schools figure they might as well sell them the crap at more reasonable prices while taking a small cut.
As far as I know, there is no actual evidence that the meals served on school grounds have any impact on child obesity or other health problems. In addition, I note that the federalism we currently have--the Department of Agriculture's various interventions--are one of the reasons that school lunches are such crap, since of course the Department of Agriculture's nutrition guidelines and other programs often sacrifice dietary soundness in favor of appeasing the various farm lobbies. Like Julian, I see no reason to federalize the nation's cafeterias.
the vending machine thing seems to stem a lot more from the interest in ELIMINATING the fodservice, which is expensive, and has to be staffed, than anything else. At my own kids schools [elem, and middle] they decommed the kitchens long ago. The reduced price or free stuff is trucked in on something vaguely looking like a roach coach, and 80% of the kids just bring their own. vending machines are provided, and the profits are split amongst the extracurricular groups. The district is large, and is well off...
so... there my be more reasons than we imagine...
The libertarian approach is to assume that those people probably feel the same way about their kids that you do about yours, and that seemingly inexplicable behavior, such as sending a child to knot rugs in a rundown factory building, probably has some deeper motivation than "Why the hell not?"
I dunno about this differentiation. I think one reason so many liberals supported welfare is that they didn't imagine so many women would be willing to use it to opt for a single parent lifestyle.
The supporters were mostly responsible people who didn't see the consequences of the new incentive, probably specifically because they were projecting their values onto others. The only thing I can see child labor and welfare having in common is that the liberals in each case don't accurately account for the unintended consequences of their good intentions.
Granted, some welfare supporters might have believed women were better off without husbands. Especially those mothers on the lower socioeconomic end of things.
Regarding the topic at hand;
When I went to school, what the school could make money from was a big factor in what got sold. And while everything was supposed to be public, some terms of the (bad) deal they refused to release.
"Why are all these people installing vending machines in schools?"
Because PepsiCo or Coke pays the district millions of dollars to do so.
I hate to publicly age myself, but most of the elementry schools I attended as a kid did not have a cafeteria. Kids brought their own lunches (or went home for lunch). School lunches were only served on Wednesday afternoons as a fund raiser for the PTA (hotdog with chips for 35 cents). Of course, some families were too poor to feed their kids lunch, so a program was launched to address this need. By the time my own kids were in elementary school in Texas, they weren't allowed to bring a lunch (that would stigmatize the kids who were on the "lunch program"). The kids from poor families had a debit-like card given them by the school to pay for lunch. Kids from less poor families had to deposit money on account at the school to pay for their lunches. If they did not (or mom and dad forgot to fill up the kid's card), the child could not eat lunch. (Poor kids cannot be allowed to go hungry, but the children of the rich can?)
In addition to lunch, the cafeteria was open for breakfast (the most important meal of the day!). (We were glad the school didn't insist our kids eat breakfast at school.) They served an early dinner, too. Funny how these programs, once started, keep growing.
In the midst of all my reminiscing, I forgot to mention the point I wanted to make (I had one, honest): Part of the problem of the nanny state making all the lunch choices is it reduces a child's opportunities for learning how to make decisions on their own. A good friend recounts how he was given a rare coin by his father as a birthday present when he turned 11. He kept the coin with him as a lucky charm. About two years after his birthday, the coin was fed to a vending machine for a candy bar. My friend learned an important lesson that day, one that's stuck with him for the more than three decades since he foolishly exchanged something of real worth for a momentary pleasure followed by years of regret.
I don't mind creating a safe learning environment. I do mind if our focus on safety prevents real learning from taking place. Schools are for learning. Learning requires the ability to make choices -- sometimes the wrong choice. We shouldn't take that away from our kids.
So basically, Matt's response is "yes, my prefered policy is the objectively correct one, and the locals are wrong because...well, because they aren't implementing my prefered policy".
I wonder if Matt has ever throught beyond the obvious wrongness of the locals and considered how he might explain their behavior. Is the junk food cartel making regular deposits to their Swiss bank accounts? Do they just not subscribe to "Mother Earth News"? How is it possible that they didn't come to the same objectively correct answer that Matt did?
But I suppose that, once you have identified the one true way, understanding the motivations of the heretics becomes secondary to defeating them.
I hope it's possible for both sides of this debate to lose.
The idea that either congress or the local school boards are going to craft a virtuous solution by fiat is horse-pucky.
As it happens, I attended a school. I find the old truths still obtain . . . Kids love junk food. Cafeteria food sucks. 'Twas ever thus.
My kids go to school in Arlington VA which has recently gone onto a crusade against junk food. Result: kid #2 often leaves the lunch on his plate. He hates it, and he says, 'it's too healthy!'
So for him, we were better off before. At least he was eating something.
Unlike David Walser, the schools of my long ago youth had cafeterias that cooked real food - badly. There were no vending machines except in the high school, but most kids brought bag lunches rather than risk the mystery meat and limp overcooked greens.
As I understand it, in most districts this has been replaced with an arrangement where the cooked food is trucked in from some central kitchen - and just about the only thing I can think of that would make school cafeteria food worse is to hold it in the steam pans for longer while it gets trucked around the city. Too much of it was overcooked mush to begin with, but if you hold it for another hour, even the stale crap in vending machines is good by comparison.
So, IMHO, the main purpose of school lunch programs isn't to feed the kids, but to provide work for bureaucrats, slop-cookers, and slop-servers, and to get rid of surplus that the Dpt. of Agriculture had to buy from farmers under price support programs. Unless the kids are too poor to have another choice, whatever they actually eat comes from elsewhere. Of course, it then becomes difficult for the bureacrats, etc., to justify why so many parents are paying for their kids' lunches twice, so...
Julian's right -- the libertarian rhetoric is confusing the issue. You love scoring the point "liberals are bossy!" so much that you can't quit it even when your argument is about something else, like "liberals seek federal solutions to local problems." Drop the "Paternalism" headline and this posting becomes much more palatable.
Why not just install card-operated MRE vending machines in the schools? Poor have welfare-funded cards; others have parent-funded cards. Food is nutritious and convenient. Problem solved.
"By the time my own kids were in elementary school in Texas, they weren't allowed to bring a lunch"
Sorry to be a skeptic, but I gotta see some proof of this.
I just wish the Federal government would do less. Micromanaging public school lunches just seems to be another intrusion of the Federal government into our daily lives. I'm a little fuzzy on where the Constitution grants Congress the power to do this... I suppose it's one of those Commerce Clause things where something on a school campu somewhere crossed a state line so "poof!" Congress can now micromanage the contents of vending machines on campus.
I'm also not sure why people believe that government officials are going to be any more competent or any less corrupt just because they are located in Washington, D.C.
My wife is a teacher and is constantly trying to teach her kids in spite of all of the bureaucratic nonsense imposed by Federal, State, and local governments. And we live in Texas and kids are currently allowed to bring their lunches, though the lunch card thing is still in place. Breakfast is free, though.
EI
As a (small-l) libertarian, I think this may teach (some of) the kids valuable lessons about entrepreneurship and government interventions creating black markets.
I see no reason to federalize the nation's cafeterias. - Megan
What is it we are discussing here?
"The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 30 million children each school day in 2006." - NSLP Fact Sheet, US Dept of Agriculture (http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/)
How did this program come into being?
"The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946." (ibid)
If you would prefer to get rid of the National School Lunch Program, say so. But the decision to "federalize the nation's cafeterias" was taken 60 years ago. On national security grounds, as it happens. George C. Marshall was worried that too many Army recruits were being rejected due to malnourishment.
Given the existence of the program and its goals, the requirement that it provide healthy food, rather than contributing to the obesity problem which has turned the US into the world's fattest country (though no longer its tallest), is self-evident. If kids are going off-campus to buy junk food, ban junk food outlets within 200 yards of schools. Kids go off campus to buy smack, too; that doesn't mean the school should be selling it to them, with a taxpayer subsidy.
Aren't liberals also generally in favor of giving school children the same results as adults? If so, I can only assume that Yglesias's long range plan is to outlaw vending machines in our workplaces as well . . .
I'd be more likely to trust fans of the Nanny State to find the Objectively Correct Answer if they didn't prefer restaurants that serve "chemical-free food."
Ban junk food outlets within 200 yards of schools? So what defines a "junk food" outlet? At this rate, we're going to have raze a dead-zone around schools with markers showing how many yards away you are so you know what you can and can't do or have where. Maybe we should just build high walls around all schools with locked gates so kids can't get out and bad people can't get in. Then we can strictly control what they eat and drink and see and hear.
Or maybe the "School Lunch Program" can provide whatever food it provides and let schools provide whatever else they want (vending machines or whatever).
I think the national security justification for the school lunch program is a little weak at this point. But our education system has been infected with Federal controls for too long, probably. Removing it would be like getting rid of kudzu...
EI
I for one look forwards to the day when visitors to your nation's capital, along with citizens, can enjoy a standardised USDA Lunch, at a fair, rational, government-mandated price, rather than being forced to run the gamut of nutritional and price options offered by the greedy, grasping lunch barons.
The topic is hurting my head (sugar rush?), but the title is awesome :)
"For some reason, this puts me in mind of the discussions one hears about birth control and child labor in the developing world . . ."
Megan, what sort of discussions are you listening into? They certainly don't seem to sound like the ones I hear . . .
"there seems to be an assumption that people in far off places, particularly ones with funny religions and/or skin colors, do not have children for the same reasons that the right-thinking folks around here do."
Although to be fair, one can argue that notions about family and children and having kids do differ from place to place - indeed, one might note that they differ even in very near places like, well, here: from the quiverfulls to the childfree, from young couples already with several children to folks who have one child in later life. But that doesn't have quite the same kind of 'liberals are the real racists!' bite to it, does it?
"Because they seem to regard their children as some sort of undifferentiated herd animals"
I'm not sure where you're getting this, but it's a scary place.
"rather than loving the heck out of those adorable little tykes, we need to step in and make some decisions about how they should go about this reproduction business."
I'm not going to say the whole population control issue hasn't had some . . . questionable issues over the years, but given my (incorrect?)assumption that the bizarre, bewilderingly naive and kinda icky folks you're listening to are supposed to be liberals, this rings rather glaringly false. Instead, there tends to be a lot about empowering women to control their own reproduction - in others words, we need to help out so that people can make more decisions about how they should go about this reproduction business. Now, one should always make sure that this is sincere, but . . .
"The libertarian approach is to assume that . . . seemingly inexplicable behavior, . . . probably has some deeper motivation than "Why the hell not?" And indeed, it turns out that child labor is almost invariably a result of severe familial economic distress"
It would seem we're all libertarians then? Granted, some folks might have a less sophisticated understanding of the issue, because they're college freshman or suchlike, but nobody imagines this "why the hell not?" nonsense - everybody understands that it's because the families are desperately poor. How best to deal with the situation, sure, that's a complex issue. But really, this whole bit seems really crude, pointlessly insulting, and perhaps - given the 'some say' unsourced smearing - either pretty uninformed or kinda unreasoning-tribal-partisan-y nasty.
"Although to be fair, one can argue that notions about family and children and having kids do differ from place to place "
of course - as I meant to add - it is understood the whole love and nurture thing is pretty constant.
David:
"liberals seek federal solutions to local problems" is a form of "liberals are bossy."
This brings to mind the long-running disagreement my mom and I had about my school lunch. My mom always made lunch for me using cheap, but healthy, items. Simultaneously she tried desperately to get me to take on the task for myself, but I had better things to do in the morning (like sleep an extra 20 minutes). So finally she decided that she would just stop making my lunch, thereby forcing me to make it myself, or go hungry. Instead I would just take a dollar to school every day and buy 3 warm, delicious Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookies for my lunch. Once she noticed what I was doing, she relented and I had mom-produced lunches provided to me once again.
Given that my family had very little money, I don't understand why even the poorest of parents can't be bothered to make their kids lunches with PB&J sandwiches and carrot sticks. No one is so poor in this country that those options are out of reach.
I see no reason to federalize the nation's cafeterias.
There is always a reason to federalize anything. If you think that people should do X, the easiest way to make it happen is to have the goverment require it of people.
I nominate Marcin's as comment of the week.
Go ahead, ban unhealthy foods in schools. Result: thriving black markets, giving students valuable lessons in arbitrage, rent extraction, and competition:
Those lessons will serve them well as they grow up in the increasingly oppressive nanny state...
EI
Patience wears thin. No one is proposing banning unhealthy foods in schools. Parents are free to give kids all the unhealthy food they want. Congress is proposing to ban CORPORATIONS from SELLING unhealthy foods in schools and GOVERNMENTS from BUYING it with taxpayer money.
Patience indeed. Clearly the black market comment is directed at a situation where CORPORATIONS are forbidden to SELL unhealthy foods, so the market is taken over by entrepreneurial STUDENTS who load up their backpack and charge EXPLOITATIVE prices reflecting a black-market premium. At which point, no doubt, you and those who think like you will propose banning STUDENTS from SELLING unhealthy food to their peers (you personally are already on record for banning STORES from selling the food within 200 yards of a school), which will inevitably lead to PARENTS being told they can't send their CHILDREN to school with contraband that might be SOLD to other kids.
Or maybe you'll just ask Congress to put price controls on the kids. It's hard to predict sometimes.