The current $27 million/year program is about to be made permanent in Vermont, in the name of “equity” — but is it equitable?

A statutorily-mandated Agency of Education report dated January 16, 2023 titled “Impact And Implementation of the Universal School Meals Act Report” projects the provision of universal school meals (USM) to Vermont schoolchildren will cost approximately $27 million for FY 2023.

Another Report is mandated for February by the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office, which will “examin[e] possible revenue sources not ordinarily used for General Fund purposes for long-term funding of a statewide USM program.” The money is spent; now the State will decide where to extract it.

The move to foist this massive tax bill on Vermonters was initially represented to have a $4 million annual price tag:

An early estimate pegs the cost to the state’s education fund at about $4 million a year, according to Sen. Debbie Ingram, D-Chittenden, who is sponsoring the legislation. … Vermont would be the first in the nation to enact such a mandate, according to Hunger Free Vermont, which is championing the universal meals effort. Ingram acknowledged the bill, as written, would put some upward pressure on property taxes. But she said that the estimated cost, in the context of the state’s $1.7 billion education fund, was “incredibly reasonable.”

Proponents for a permanent $27 million/year plan do not claim that estimated cost is “incredibly reasonable.” Vermont already pays some of the highest per pupil education costs in the country relative to income — making universal school meal expenditures permanent will increase that distinction.

The push to implement costly universal meals (for breakfast and lunch) without regard to income has been led by a well-organized group of progressive NGOs including Hunger Free Vermont (HFV) and The Vermont Public Health Organization (VPHO). The provision of USM is counter to longstanding federal policies that link provision to need. The current $27 million/year program is about to be made permanent in Vermont, in the name of “equity” — but is it equitable?

Free meals for children of Vermonters who are very wealthy is regressive and transfers money unfairly to those who least merit the assistance. This is not only “inequitable,” but makes folly of the Marxist maxim “from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.” This hypocrisy is repeated when the tax man cometh: it is expected that this new $27 million annual tax levy will be added to Vermont’s Education Fund, increasing real estate taxes for many elderly and low-income residents.

HFV and VPHO strongly advocate for increased spending with zero accountability for this upside-down accounting. But these entities claim they are achieving “social justice” by expanding spending on dubious food. VPHO cites the CDC, WHO, and United Nations in support of USM:

The United Nations (UN) and WHO note that school meal programs may act as “springboards” for transforming countries’ food systems by incorporating locally grown food products and energizing local economies (WHO, 2021).

It does not energize, but saps, the local economy to tax it another $29 million annually. Yet advocates rationalize the expenditures by arguing the opposite. VPHO claims:

Taken in the context of a cost-benefit analysis, the Universal School Meal Act in Vermont, estimated to cost $29 million for the 2022-2023 school year, could produce a net economic and health benefit of almost $60 million in Vermont in one year alone.

There is no discussion of where the $29 million will come from, and it is highly doubtful that the $60 million “net economic and health benefit” is net of that $29 million — which would require “total” economic and health benefits of $89 million. Yet VPHO is very vocal about its mission toward “equity”:

We recognize the long history of genocide and land theft used to create what we know as the State of Vermont, as part of the United States of America. At VtPHA, we seek to combat systemic racism, in part by ongoing education and modeling vulnerability. We accept that decolonization and antiracism are inseparably connected and that the process of healing will take time, energy and a willingness to change.

VPHA is modeling invulnerability … to mathematical logic and economics. Basic tax policy requires that the cause and effect of spending and taxation are fully analyzed — in this case, the potential negative if unintended consequences of taxing already-strapped retirees and low income property owners who will bear the full cost of this vaunted USM lunch-box-for-Richie-Rich social justice extravaganza. One wonders whether deliberately extracting wealth from old white people is the plan.

One web site by Hunger Free Vermont titled Universal School Meals claims:

We have an opportunity to make permanent a stronger, more equitable school meal program. Let’s make sure that universal School Meals are permanently funded through the Education Fund so that no student has to learn what hunger feels like while at school.

There is no consideration of what silent hunger a 90-year-old Vermont Social Security recipient must learn to feel at home alone. Or whether a young working couple with kids getting free lunches at school who would have qualified under existing federal guidelines for SNAP now must face an even greater hurdle to own their own modest home, because real estate taxes have climbed to provide free meals to wealthier children.

This does not sound like a stronger, more equitable meal program. It sounds like tax-and-spend inflation in a state where housing is already extremely rare and costly. Research shows having a place of shelter in Vermont winters yields economic benefits in health and employment. Perhaps some Vermont NGOs are working to solve this economic housing crisis — with free housing for all, to boost the economy. After they create the housing benefits, they can decide who to make pay for it.

As Milton Friedman wrote: There are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can do.

John Klar is an attorney and farmer residing in Brookfield. © Copyright True North Reports 2023. All rights reserved.