Please don't compare the entirety of the US education system against an incremental fragment of military spending as though that isn't a completely bogus evaluation. We spend just as much on the war machine if not more.

We're talking about an incremental fragment of the US military budget. It's fair to compare it to an incremental fragment of public wellness that would cost less and have profound impact.

> and a large component of this funding request is for capital expenditures, not ongoing operational expenditure

Oh, of course. You're right. I forgot that drones have zero operational costs and that military spending will decrease next year instead of increasing again and again and again like always.

The rough cost to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students in the US is $30b - so as the go says, less than $55b.

Capex becomes opex if the enemy is shooting your drones down or if you're using disposable drones to deliver fatal payloads.

School meal funding would not cost more than $55bn or even close to $55bn. California’s program, subtracting initial implementation cost, was close to $1bn to feed ~10% of U.S. public school students 2 free meals per day. $55bn couldn’t fund a free school meal program indefinitely but I am sure the ongoing costs of the drone program could, this $55bn isn’t a one time cost.

> remove our dependence on oil, and thus never need to fight wars for it

The US is the largest oil producer in the world by a significant margin. They don't have a dependency on foreign oil. They are also the largest refiner of oil products in the world.

Any wars related to oil are about other countries' dependence on foreign oil and refining.

We had no need to fight Iran to begin with. We just did it as a bro move to support a buddy.

And it isn’t over oil it’s over Israel being sick of Iran funding groups that continuously launch rockets at their cities. (Which, frankly I get, but maybe not enough to crash the global economy)

> The causative relationship of funding on student performance is not strong.

Please don't pretend that "school funding" is the same as feeding children or that we don't have established research showing a connection between school meal programs and improved academic performance and reduced student suspensions.

Not sure whether you're intentionally spreading misinformation on this subject or not, but based on who I'm responding to it probably is intentional.

Anyways in contrast to "Kids are being fed". Almost 14% of children in the U.S. face food insecurity according to the U.S. government. There is real evidence this improved during covid when the government did offer additional funding for school provided meals. The number of food insecure children is on the rise. And every year republican administered states make it harder to obtain and maintain SNAP and WIC benefits whether you qualify or not.

So no it's not an appeal to emotion because there is real data that disagrees with you, and no the kids arent universally being fed. I'm glad you and your family are so secure in your situation you can comfortably argue against children receiving meals on the internet. But for some of us any number of children going hungry for any reason is too many, it's not justifiable as "good enough" or "we spend enough" if there are still hungry children whom have no control of the situation themselves.