I would love to have a Japan-style universal lunch program. But this point is an empty appeal to emotion. Kids are being fed. The U.S. spends $100 billion a year on SNAP and $18 billion a year on the National School Lunch Program. We just focus most of the money on cash benefits to parents of children rather than feeding kids at school.

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.