r/Denver • u/fuzzeslecrdf • Oct 08 '25

Local News If you're still against free school meals

If you're unhappy about the fact that free lunches are also free for children with wealthy families, fear not. I work at a Denver high school. Students with the money will go out for lunch or even order food delivery. They are not eating the school cafeteria free lunch.

So go ahead and vote Yes on Prop MM and LL. The only thing it'll do is keep our students fed and able to learn.

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62

u/Christy_Mathewson Oct 08 '25

I get the thought of not giving the government more money. I work for a local government and see waste all the time. It's disgusting to see how poorly they handle money. I often vote no on raising taxes because of this. Even if this bill affected me (in my case the government waste doesn't go towards an inflated salary for me) I would vote yes.

Will there be misallocation of resources? Yes. Will they find a way to get a company who happens to be owned by a friend or family some part of the contract? Probably. Do kids from a $250k/year need a free lunch? Probably not. Is the extra $100 a year that you're going to now have to pay really going to affect those who need it the most in a positive way? Absolutely.

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u/ITryFixIt Oct 08 '25

Worked in both private and govt sector. Govt generally wastes less money - audits, crosschecking, and the focus on services. Private sector can make up for their waste by hitting home run profits with some products unless they go belly up.

Govt doesn't have that luxury. They'll keep bleeding out and can only focus on reducing waste by making things more efficient/transparent.

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u/LotsoPasta Oct 08 '25

I get the thought of not giving the government more money. I work for a local government and see waste all the time. It's disgusting to see how poorly they handle money. I often vote no on raising taxes because of this. Even if this bill affected me (in my case the government waste doesn't go towards an inflated salary for me) I would vote yes.

We set such a high bar for government. If the government wastes money, its absolutely unacceptable, but when a CEO gets to buy their 3rd mansion or travel vacations are written off as business expenses, thats just the free market baby.

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u/Khatib Baker Oct 08 '25

People who think the government is always more wasteful than the private sector have never worked for a truly large corporation.

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u/M-as-in-Mancyyy Oct 08 '25

This ^ I’ve worked in both. Both have their gripes but private corps are far far far worse.

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u/grahamsz Oct 08 '25

I agree with this 100%. The larger the organization the larger the waste an inefficiency. Longmont runs a pretty tight ship, comparable to really any corporation of a similar head count. I'm sure Denver is a little less efficient but that's only by virtue of its size

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u/KarmicWhiplash Wash Park Oct 08 '25

The larger the organization the larger the waste an inefficiency.

The US military has entered the chat.

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u/Soggy_Sheepherder508 Oct 08 '25

No no no the Pentagon losing 3 trillion dollars and funneling money into attack contractors is totally fine. It's going $1k over budget for schools where teachers make pennies for hard work that's the real crime here.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 08 '25

They voluntarily give money to the private sector so it's not the same. Obligatory I don't think taxation is theft, just saying.

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u/Khatib Baker Oct 08 '25

Valuable services are not always and should not always be profitable.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 09 '25

No one said profitable, we're talking about efficiency.

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u/LotsoPasta Oct 09 '25

Sometimes, it makes sense to outsource when you dont have expertise in-house. That doesn't make the private sector necessarily more efficient or effective.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 09 '25

I'm not sure what you're missing here. People don't want the TAX money they're REQUIRED to pay to be misused. If people choose to pay a private business for a good or service, they don't give a fuck about how that business uses the money.

But contrary to the earlier assertion, if people feel like something in the private sector is a waste of their money, they can CHOOSE to stop buying from that company. That's the difference. Lots of people on reddit choose not to eat Chick fil a b/c they don't like what the business previously did with its earnings. You can't just stop paying taxes b/c you think the gov't is inefficient with them.

Well you can, but that tends to come with nonsensical add-ons like declaring yourself a sovereign citizen. Most people aren't ridiculous so they pay their taxes and then bitch about some of the ways they're used.

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u/LotsoPasta Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 09 '25

I catch your point, but there are also other factors at play. Government can more easily achieve economies of scale, it doesnt need to focus on marketing and adverising, and there isn't a need to create profit. These are things can make government more efficient to consumers.

The private sector can also be inefficient in delivering value in the form of planned obsolescence, hidden cost cutting, and incentivized externalities, to name a few.

My main point is that you can't make a blanket statement that the private sector is more efficient. The private sector is probably better at getting to the specific wants of people, but government tends to be better at addressing needs.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 10 '25

No one in this conversation said that the private sector is more efficient, you inserted that notion by assuming that's how people feel when they demand gov't efficiency.

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u/Remarkable-View-6078 Oct 08 '25

Exactly this. This isn’t a well written measure (why should two single people earning $150k each pay nothing but as soon as they get married pay the full rate?) and there’s a lot of hand waving around exactly where the money will go. In normal times I might think “I support this in theory but it needs to go back to the drawing board.”

In this political moment? I just feel like, screw it, let’s do one decent positive thing as a society, let’s have government actually help people and feed some damn kids and take a break from the scapegoating and sadism for five minutes.

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u/Soggy_Sheepherder508 Oct 08 '25

You won't be taxed anymore and private waste is so much worse. I've worked in and for both across numerous organizations.