Yes, Betsy, There Is a Free Lunch

“I’m Betsy DeVos. You may have heard some of the ‘wonderful’ things the mainstream media has called me lately,” she said. “I, however, pride myself on being called a mother, a grandmother, a life partner, and perhaps the first person to tell Bernie Sanders to his face that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
                        (Address to the CPAC conference, February 2017)

Dear Betsy,

You and your friends are wrong. There is a free lunch, one that is provided every day to many thousands of schoolchildren in their public schools. One that even your preferred 'schools of choice' should provide. It is a lunch for kids whose parents cannot or will not pay so that their child may have one nutritious, fulfilling meal a day.

You judge those parents, Betsy. You believe they are morally wanting as if they did not love their children. As if they did not have to work two or three jobs at minimum wage to pay rent, provide clothing, medical care, and sometimes don't have enough for more than cornflakes and ketchup. Have you checked the price of cereal lately?

You say that the problem is one of character education. That fits with your views that our school system should be used to advance YOUR idea of God's kingdom. You might want to check in with God on that one. Because the Bible you claim is the Bible filled with the prophets' cries for social justice and compassion for the poor.

Betsy, all the character education in the world will not satisfy an empty stomach. If you had gone to public school, you would have learned about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

There is a free lunch. Oh, you are correct in that someone had to pay for it. Food does not magically appear as if there is a crack between multiple universes and nourishing products slip through into ours. But there is a free lunch.

A lunch free to children because we, the taxpayers, have agreed to provide it. Because no one, not even you, Betsy, can walk by a hungry child and not do something. The problem is that you have insulated yourself from the hungry and poor and therefore feel you need do nothing.

Betsy, there are no words left for you except these: FEED MY LAMBS.

You know who said that.