April 1, 2025 10:11AM # End Federal School Food Programs By [Chris Edwards](https://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards) --- SHARE Listen to this article Generated with [ ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) AI technology. Loading the [Elevenlabs Text to Speech](https://elevenlabs.io/text-to-speech) AudioNative Player... President Trump is moving to shut down the federal Department of Education. Congress will need to make any cuts permanent, but downsizing the federal education bureaucracy is a long-overdue reform. The department, however, is not the only way that the federal government intervenes in the nation’s schools. The government also spends $35 billion a year on school food programs through the Department of Agriculture. The school lunch program was enacted in 1946 and has morphed into an array of breakfast, lunch, after-school, and summer food programs that now cover [30 million](https://fns-prod.azureedge.us/sites/default/files/resource-files/slsummar-12.pdf) children. My new [op-ed](https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/04/end-federal-school-food-programs/) at *National Review* discusses four reasons to axe federal school food programs and allow the states to adopt their own policies. My full study on the issue [is here](https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/cutting-school-food-subsidies). ##### Related Tags [Department of Government Efficiency](https://www.cato.org/department-government-efficiency), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Department of Agriculture](https://www.cato.org/department-agriculture), [Downsizing Government](https://www.cato.org/downsizing-government) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).