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CAITLIN MACNEAL – DECEMBER 18, 2013, 4:34 PM EST3001
This post has been updated.
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a primary candidate in the 2014 Georgia Senate race, on Saturday suggested poor students sweep floors in order to get a free lunch, according to the Huffington Post.
Kingston opposes the federal school lunch program, which subsidizes meals for kids from low-income families, but he said that if schools do provide meals, students should learn that nothing is free.
"But one of the things I’ve talked to the secretary of agriculture about: Why don’t you have the kids pay a dime, pay a nickel to instill in them that there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch? Or maybe sweep the floor of the cafeteria -- and yes, I understand that that would be an administrative problem, and I understand that it would probably lose you money," he said at a Jackson County Republican Party meeting. "But think what we would gain as a society in getting people -- getting the myth out of their head that there is such a thing as a free lunch."
Read more here: GOP Rep Suggests Kids Clean Schools In Exchange For Lunch
This guy is the son of a university professor. He had a fairly privileged upbringing and thus has no idea what it is like to grow up poor as a kid. What an asshole. I mean what is he wanting to stand there at the lunch line and tell some 1st grader "Hey kid, you can have your Chilimac today, but first I need you to take this broom here and sweep the floor in front of all your friends".
Personally, I grew up poor. Very poor actually, we did not take free or reduced lunches, we just brought ours instead (the same crappy lunch every day). However, I know what its like to be a poor kid. I know what its like to boil water to take a bath in for months on end because your gas is cut off. I know what its like having no A/C in Arkansas summers living in a trailer. This guy has no idea. Despite growing up poor, I always knew the value of work, indeed growing up poor is what instilled it in me. I got my first real job when I was 15 and have worked my whole life since. Before I was married I worked 2 jobs to get ahead. We would be considered upper middle class now I suppose, but I worked hard to get here and I did not need some privileged extreme right jackass to instill that in me. How crazy and mean do these guys have to get before we all say this is ridiculous, go home, and for God sakes get the hell out of government. We don't want people like you, Jack Kingston, telling us how to run our lives or our country. I don't see this one as a right or left issue, I see it as an anti-jackass issue.