That's an inaccurate number. We aren't "giving" them anything, either. We're just not taking it from them. And, as Harry said, much of that money is through tax breaks every business receives.
Secondly, we spend $79 billion a year on food subsidies (food stamps, WIC, free lunch program). There are roughly 64 million students in elementary, junior high, and high schools. For breakfast, lunch, and a snack, the current payout to each school from the government is $6.18 per child per day. For a year, that's $395,520,000 per year. Alaska receives about twice that amount per child and Hawaii receives about 1.5 times that amount per child. Then there's a seperate program for milk.
In 2007, the program cost us $8.7 billion to run. So if you deduct the $395 million in actual school reimbursement, the government spends $8.35 billion a year administering athe free lunch program. That means the government only spends about 4% of it's total budget directly on the students who need the food. Do you think 4% efficiency is enough justification to spend MORE money on providing free food for children who don't need free food?
You can bring in unrelated policy all day, but let's focus on the issue here.
