The Exponent - columns


02-13-2003	Previous edition: 02-12-2003

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Bush takes bite out of school lunches

One of the most basic principles of economics is "there’s no such thing as a free lunch." Recent legislation proposed by the Bush administration is reinforcing this point.

Poor people across the country were hit with some bad news last week when President Bush unveiled his plan to increase scrutiny on families applying for free and reduced lunch programs and to tackle income tax fraud by poor people.

Bush wants to make the free and reduced lunch application process more arduous. States review about one out of six application forms for inaccuracies or falsification. Bush would like states to increase the number of applications that they review.

According to the National School Lunch Program’s Web site, any child from a family whose income is at or below 130 percent of the national poverty level is eligible for free lunch. The income range for a reduced price lunch is from 130 percent to 185 percent of the national poverty level.

Any legislation regarding this program should be closely monitored by Tippecanoe County residents because so many students would be affected. Census 2000 data reports that 36 percent of Lafayette School Corporation students, 16 percent of Tippecanoe School Corporation students and 7 percent of West Lafayette students receive free or reduced price lunches.

Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, the spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Education, said there will be no way to assess the potential effects of Bush’s program until the legislation passes and the government issues regulations on how to deal with the new laws

Regarding the current situation, however, Tiede Wilhelmus said there has been an increase in eligibility for free and reduced price lunches due to Sept. 11 and the economic downturn. She also questioned the importance of reviewing more applications.

"I can’t imagine that a lot of people would go through the time-consuming process if, indeed, they weren’t eligible. It doesn’t occur to me that that is something that people are likely to do."

The New York Times reported that the second facet of the Bush proposal is a request for $100 million and 650 employees to help uncover an alleged $7 billion of false claims for the earned-income tax credit program.

The earned-income tax credit program allows people with low to modest incomes to deduct a certain amount of money from their taxes. The credit ranges from $376 for a couple with no children and an income of less than $12,060 to up to $4,140 for a couple with two or more children and an income of less than $34,178.

President Bush is coming dangerously close to fighting a ruinous two-front war: one in Iraq and the other against America’s poor people.

Why does Bush want to create yet another layer of bureaucracy in our government to close loops in the tax code that benefit the poor and pay no attention to the gaping holes that help corporations?

I thought that one of the popular conservative battle cries was to keep the government as small as possible while giving states more power. Apparently, we need a small government to protect the interests of the wealthy and a bureaucratic sledgehammer to keep the poor in line.

Why is his administration fighting to repeal the inheritance and dividend taxes if it is so worried about tax revenue? It should be a higher priority to give poor people a break than to relieve the eternal struggle of the wealthy to keep their stocks, bonds and inheritances.

Might the economy rebound faster if people who will actually return money to the economy (poorer people) have more money to spend than people who will just invest their tax refund? I think it’s blatantly obvious whose interests Bush is serving.

Evidence would indicate that conservative presidents have a history of being out of touch with the reality of life for poor people. Political commentators and analysts have compared the Bush administration to the Reagan administration in terms of tax cuts, military spending and states’ rights policies. What was Reagan’s brilliant idea regarding to the National School Lunch Program? He wanted to get ketchup classified as a vegetable when determining the nutritional value of the school lunches.

Members of Congress should have a good laugh at Bush’s bill and then throw it out of their chambers as soon as it gets there. This is a sorry excuse for domestic policy, and will do more harm than good.

Nathan Hall is a Senior in the Schools of Engineering. He can be reached at opinions@purdueexponent.org.

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