Investing

End Federal School Food Programs

Chris Edwards

President Trump is moving to shut down the federal Department of Education. Congress will need to make any cuts permanent, but downsizing the federal education bureaucracy is a long-overdue reform. The department, however, is not the only way that the federal government intervenes in the nation’s schools.

The government also spends $35 billion a year on school food programs through the Department of Agriculture. The school lunch program was enacted in 1946 and has morphed into an array of breakfast, lunch, after-school, and summer food programs that now cover 30 million children.

My new op-ed at National Review discusses four reasons to axe federal school food programs and allow the states to adopt their own policies.

My full study on the issue is here.