The “food fight” in question involves the City of Seattle plans to pay for school breakfasts and lunches for ALL students, not just “low-income” ones. This is a grand idea of the new Socialist Mayor Katie Wilson, and it has inspired some jousting among City Council members. The issue, of course, is how to pay for the program. Yes, the city can provide “free breakfast and lunch” for all students, but someone has to pay for all those meals. This KOMO story covers the issue.

The story describes how the city “allocated” funds to pay for the free meals, but the source of those funds is very interesting. Here is a quote from the article.

Asked why the city would spend money on a new program while preparing for possible budget reductions, Strauss pointed back to Wilson.

“The mayor has found that universal meals are very important,” he said.

Wilson responded Thursday sharply, arguing that the council’s proposal is less financially responsible than the plan it rejected one day earlier.

“This is a priority of my office, and we did the work to find a fiscally responsible path to fund universal school meals within the FEPP levy, which didn’t require cutting services or eliminating jobs,” Wilson said in a statement.

“Now Council is proposing to pull this funding from our general fund, which is already facing a $175 million deficit,” Wilson continued. “I look forward to seeing which critical services they plan to cut from the general fund to make their numbers work.”

However, later in the article KOMO notes that the city is already counting on funds to be generated by the newly-passed “Millionaires Tax”, which does not even start until 2029, AND is subject to a repeal initiative on the November ballot that puts the entire law in jeopardy.

The Mayor wants to start a brand new, expensive program with dubious necessity, at a time when the City budget as of now is already in a deficit position. Like the State of Washington, the City of Seattle is already spending money it doesn’t have, that might not even appear, and that is not required for the running of the City. She wants to pull money for this pie-in-the-sky program from the city General Fund, hoping that maybe money will come from somewhere to cover it.

I swear, the Leftists who run both Seattle and Washington State inhabit an alternate reality, filled with kittens, unicorns, and free money growing on trees. This fall, Seattle voters will also be asked to approve a doubling of their city “Transit Sales Tax” from 0.3% to 0.6%, to pay for more mass transit. Not so gradually, the City is taking over more functions from the people of Seattle, and they seem just fine with it.

Another Seattle news source describes the conflict this way (KIRO):

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson had a plan to provide free breakfast and lunch to every Seattle Public School student this fall, but was stymied after the Seattle City Council and Council President Joy Hollingsworth “blindsided” her at the last minute.

The plan included drawing funds from taxpayers through the approved school levy, but after the first two years, the cost of universal meals would be paid for through the state’s recently passed millionaires’ income tax.

See, they are spending funds that may NEVER appear! Welcome to the City of Seattle, where Wishes Prevail. And budgets fail.