In allowing a universal school meals bill to become law without his signature, Gov. Phil Scott adopted an interesting philosophical position. Take it away, VTDigger:

He noted that the program will fund free meals for even wealthy students. 

“That’s not progressive education funding policy, it’s regressive policy that hurts the very families we are trying to help,” he said. 

Oh yes, heaven forbid that an undeserving child should receive a free lunch. That would be an abuse of the public purse and — follow closely here, things get a little thick — a punishment on the kids who really need a handout.

As the kids used to say, “lolwut?”

This is another case where the governor can’t say the quiet part out loud — that he doesn’t want to provide free school meals despite their proven benefits — but he still has to register his disapproval, so he comes up with transparently phony arguments like “free lunches hurt poor kids” and “a veto fight would distract me from my neverending fight for better schools.” As if we can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

I wouldn’t mind if he were in the least bit consistent in this position. But he’s not. In fact, this is the only issue where he argues that a non-means-tested government benefit is a bad thing.

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