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NARRATION: The national school lunch program serves nearly 5 billion lunches a year to 29 million students, with proven benefits to their health and academic performance. But over the years. . .

ARCHIVAL (1981):
REP. BILL GOODLING: It was disgraceful. It was disgusting.

NARRATION:. . . it’s gotten tangled up in debates over budgets. . .

ARCHIVAL (3-11-81):
NEWS REPORT: The 40 percent cuts proposed in the nutrition programs could kill off one of the most effective social services available.

NARRATION:. . . and over what role government should play in people’s lives.

ARCHIVAL (FOX NEWS, 2014):
NEWS REPORT: Kids are either dumping the meals in the garbage or not buying school lunch at all.

ARCHIVAL (1-20-81):
SENATOR: The President of the United States.
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: I joined the Reagan administration shortly after the inauguration.

NARRATION: In 1981, William Hoagland was a young Republican economist concerned with growing government debt and deficits.

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: It wasn’t that big of a deficit back then as it is today, but we had a $70 billion deficit, and he was going to come to Washington and he was going to reduce the deficit.

NARRATION: Hoagland’s job was to head up the agency overseeing the national school lunch program. Reagan proposed reducing its budget, and said truly needy children would not be cut back.

ARCHIVAL (1981):
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: But by cutting back on meals for children of families who can afford to pay, the savings will be $1.6 billion in fiscal year 1982.

NARRATION: The program began in 1946 as a solution to a major public health problem: malnutrition among the nation’s children. Supporters have called it the greatest feeding program in the world.

ARCHIVAL (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 1960):
ANNOUNCER: They’re eating a good, low cost school lunch that gives them up to half of their daily nutritional needs.

NARRATION: Federal subsidies allowed schools to serve free and reduced-price meals to low and middle-income students. The program enjoyed bipartisan support for decades, until 1981.

ARCHIVAL (8-18-81):
NEWS REPORT: Next month, these kids will be going back to school, and while they may not know the meaning of Reaganomics, they may feel its impact at lunchtime.

NARRATION: State officials facing cuts asked Hoagland for help.

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: They said, well, if you’re going to reduce my subsidy, give me greater flexibility in the school lunch pattern.

NARRATION: That flexibility came in regulations drafted by Hoagland’s agency, suggesting ways to economize, like reducing portion sizes and allowing condiments to substitute for vegetables.

ARCHIVAL:
NANCY AMIDEI (FOOD RESEARCH AND ACTION CENTER): You could take pickle relish and that would count as a vegetable.

NARRATION: And that’s when the trouble started.

ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 9-24-81):
NEWS REPORT: Over in the Senate, a media event. Democrats eat a new cutback school lunch. John Glenn doesn’t seem to like his. Byrd of West Virginia notes that ketchup is now a vegetable. Leahy of Vermont offers his vegetable to a reporter.
SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: You want to take my vegetable home with you, you can have it.

ARCHIVAL (NBC NEWS, 9-5-81):
NEWS REPORT: A serving of a 2-ounce hamburger with 10 french fries is cut back to a 1.5-ounce hamburger with six french fries.

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: I will be the first one to admit that those regulations were issued, I didn’t read every word. And somebody must have looked at those words and made the issue out of it.

ARCHIVAL (1981):
NANCY AMIDEI: We had a child in our office one day. I said, Meghan, what would you think if this was put in front of you at school? And she said, yuck, where’s the rest of it?

NARRATION: Hoagland was summoned to Congress to explain.

ARCHIVAL (1981):
WILLIAM HOAGLAND: The purpose behind the particular proposals was to offset the loss in the federal subsidy. This was a fiscal decision, as you pointed out, more so than it was a nutritional decision.
CONGRESSMAN: All right, all right.

NARRATION: Even though the regulations never mentioned ketchup, the media mocked the president for serving it to kids while his wife Nancy was stocking the White House with 4,000 pieces of new china.

ARCHIVAL (CNN, 10-1-81):
REPORTER: Do you feel that you are being sensitive enough to the symbolism of Republican mink coats, limousines, $1,000 a plate china at the White House, when kids are being told they can eat ketchup as a vegetable?

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: I recall going home late one night. My wife said, you’re finished. And I said, well, why is that? She said, because when Johnny Carson in his monologue in the evening is talking about ketchup as a vegetable . . .

ARCHIVAL (THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY CARSON):
JOHNNY CARSON: . . .  to grow a vegetable that would be considered ketchup. 

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: . . . you’re toast. And so, she was right.    

ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 9-25-81):
NEWS REPORT: Today Budget Director David Stockman said it was all a mistake. The rules had been killed.
DAVID STOCKMAN: There has been a great misinterpretation of those regulations that were issued a week ago by USDA. Those were proposed regulations. They’ve been withdrawn. It was a bureaucratic goof that we’re going to change.

NARRATION: But funding cuts went ahead, making lunches more expensive for schools and families. Over 3 million students would drop out of the program, and two days before Thanksgiving, a holiday known for big meals, William Hoagland was, quote, reassigned.

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: I had failed in anticipating the controversy that would surround that kind of attention being brought to the president. The lesson learned, that this can be a cruel town.

NARRATION: In the 1990s, schools faced continuing budget pressures and some turned to fast food vendors to save money.

ARCHIVAL (ABC NEWS, 12-7-93):
NEWS REPORT: Tacos, pizza, Big Macs, without ever leaving the lunchroom.

NARRATION: And as teenage obesity soared, who should decide what kids were eating became the flash point.

ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 2-9-10):
FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA: We’re going to dramatically improve the quality of the food we offer in schools.

NARRATION: When First Lady Michelle Obama pushed to make school lunches healthier . . . 

ARCHIVAL (FOX NEWS, 9-15-10):
ANCHOR: Taking the nanny state to a new level, Michelle Obama is suggesting. . .

NARRATION: . . . opponents called it big government intrusion.

ARCHIVAL:
TV PERSONALITY: Get your damn hands off my fries, lady.

NARRATION: . . . and some students didn’t like it much.

ARCHIVAL (CBS NEWS, 9-26-12):
NEWS REPORT: In Wisconsin, students boycotted their school lunches.
REPORTER: If you could sum up cafeteria food in one word, what would it be?
STUDENT: Slop.

NARRATION: Today, school cafeterias feature less fast food and more fruits and vegetables, and during Covid those meals proved to be a lifeline for families.

ARCHIVAL (KNBC-LA, 7-3-21):
NEWS REPORT: The federal government waived income requirements for free meals, allowing schools to offer food to anyone who needed it.

NARRATION: For two years, the federal government covered the cost of free meals for all students, regardless of income.

ARCHIVAL (WTHR NEWS, 2020):
INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA SCHOOL OFFICIAL: A tremendous help for parents, a huge weight lifted off their shoulders.

NARRATION: Along with other pandemic aid programs, the meals contributed to a sharp decline in child poverty. And decades of studies show that students who take their meals at school have higher attendance, fewer behavior problems and better test scores. 

DR. JENNIFER CADENHEAD (NUTRITION RESEARCH SCIENTIST, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY): It helps prepare their bodies and their minds for learning. We know that it improves academic progress. It’s improved the meal quality overall, and that’s why we now have the healthiest meals of the day in school meals. It helps with everything.

ARCHIVAL (KAAL TV, 12-20-23):
MINNESOTA GOVERNOR TIM WALZ: We still have children that are food insecure.

NARRATION: When the federal help ended in 2022, several states including Minnesota decided to pay for meals for all on their own, saying Covid revealed the depth of hunger in their communities.

The meals have been very popular at the Yinghua Academy, a Chinese language charter school in Minneapolis

DR. LUYI LIEN (CEO AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, YINGHUA ACADEMY): Before this free meal program, we have 200 something students taking meal every day. But right now, we have about 600 students taking school meal every day. So we see the huge increase. And it is free. Why not? 

NARRATION: Free to students, but costing Minnesota taxpayers more than they expected, almost $500 million in the first two years. Suddenly the debate about who should get a free lunch was about the richer kids.

ARCHIVAL (FOX 9 NEWS, 1-10-24):
NEWS REPORT: Republicans have criticized the program for the cost overruns and as being a handout to wealthier families that didn’t already qualify for free meals.

DR. LUYI LIEN: I think the important thing is every student’s getting a lunch and no matter what background they are, or what kind of families they come from.  

DR. JENNIFER CADENHEAD: In the way that we support educators to have textbooks for children, we don’t put the same money in to have adequate meals for children. You wouldn’t expect to say O.K, little Johnny, you can’t play with that ball at recess, or, hey Suzie, you’re not allowed to have that physics textbook until you pay. Why do you do that for school meals?  

NARRATION: Today, the school meals program costs the federal government around $22 billion a year. 

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: Heh, shall I say there’s no free lunch, unfortunately.

NARRATION: William Hoagland, now with the Bipartisan Policy Center, estimates that making breakfast and lunch free for all students would cost another six to 10 billion. But the man who was once responsible for cutting the program now says it’s time to expand it.

WILLIAM HOAGLAND: It will be costly. And as an old budgeteer, I need to note that. Somewhat tongue in cheek, I’ll say when you’re running a  trillion dollar deficit, what’s a, what’s a couple hundred million dollars in terms of providing food to children? Surely we don’t want children to go to school hungry.

(END)