It’s so easy for Washington to hand down regulations that are full of visible good intentions – and invisible costs.
It was painful to read, for instance, about the big expense that schools face under nutrition rules proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
With most money for schools coming from local and state governments, it is astonishing that the federal government is dictating the makeup of school meals to begin with. But the costs to obey those regulations are troubling, too.
Local schools officials “are starting to panic over how they’ll afford the hefty prices” that come with complying with the rules, the Times Free Press reported.
“We don’t have enough money now to meet the standards they want, so how are we going to do this financially?” asked Carolyn Childs, head of Hamilton County Schools’ nutrition department.
She pointed out that putting more nutritious vegetables on a lunch tray is no guarantee that children will eat them.
“They’ll do without before they eat something they don’t like,” she noted. So, spending may rise with little corresponding improvement in students’ health.
Washington says it will “help” by increasing subsidies for school nutrition by 6 cents per meal. But, as Childs said, “Six cents is nothing.” And subsidies do not eliminate the cost; they merely shift it onto taxpayers.
This sort of predicament is why it is so important to consider the unintended effects and costs of federal regulations before, rather than after, they are imposed.