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Colorado Votes to Tax the Rich to Fund 'Incredibly Popular' Free School Meals
"Colorado sent a clear message tonight: No child should ever have to learn on an empty stomach," said the state Democratic Party.
Nov 05, 2025
Colorado voters on Tuesday handily approved a pair of ballot measures to fully fund free meals for all K-12 public school students, give raises or stipends to scholastic cafeteria workers, and enact grants for schools to buy fresh foods from local farmers.
According to unofficial results published Wednesday morning by the Colorado Secretary of State's office, Proposition LL overwhelmingly passed 64.66% to 35.34%. The proposal allows the state to keep and spend $12.4 million in tax revenue, including interest, already collected under Proposition FF to fund the Healthy School Meals for All Program, a 2022 voter-approved initiative to provide free breakfast and lunch to students and provide food purchasing grants to public schools.
Proposition MM—which raises taxes on households with annual incomes over $300,000 to fund the meals program—was approved 58.07% to 41.93%. The measure is meant to fill funding gaps in Proposition FF and was spurred by US President Donald Trump's signing of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which inflicted the largest-ever cuts in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), largely to pay for tax cuts for the ultrarich and corporations.
“We're relieved that Colorado kids will continue to have access to free meals at school,” Anya Rose, director pf public policy at the advocacy group Hunger Free Colorado, told Colorado Public Radio (CPR) after the measures' passage. “I think that hunger is top of mind for a lot of people right now, and it's really visible for people. And we know that this is an incredibly popular program that is more important, now than ever, since there are so many people struggling to make ends meet and resources have fallen through for a lot.”
Colorado sent a clear message tonight: no child should ever have to learn on an empty stomach.While Republicans in Washington play politics with our families, our food and our health care, Colorado is stepping up, keeping Healthy School Meals for All alive for 600,000 kids.
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— Colorado Democrats 🇺🇸 (@coloradodems.org) November 4, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Joe Kabourek, who managed the Keep Kids Fed campaign, said in a statement: "Thank you to every voter, volunteer, community partner, and endorsing organization who turned out to pass Propositions LL and MM, ensuring every child in Colorado can continue to get a healthy meal at school."
Nine US states have now enacted laws providing free meals to all public school students regardless of family income: California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont. Cities including Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, DC have enacted similar programs.
Betsy Hayes of Denver recalled the cruelty her children faced from other students for needing free school meals.
“It was very embarrassing for them and stigmatizing to them, and I really would like other kids not to have to go through that,” she told CPR.
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Land Degradation Threatens Billions of Lives Worldwide, Warns UN Food Agency
"Sustainable land management requires enabling environments that support long-term investment, innovation, and stewardship," said the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Nov 03, 2025
A report published Monday by a United Nations agency revealed that nearly 1 in 5 people on Earth live in regions affected by failing crop yields driven by human-induced land degradation, “a pervasive and silent crisis that is undermining agricultural productivity and threatening ecosystem health worldwide."
According to the latest UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of Food and Agriculture report, "Today, nearly 1.7 billion people live in areas where land degradation contributes to yield losses and food insecurity."
"These impacts are unevenly distributed: In high-income countries, degradation is often masked by intensive input use, while in low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, yield gaps are driven by limited access to inputs, credit, and markets," the publication continues. "The convergence of degraded land, poverty, and malnutrition creates vulnerability hotspots that demand urgent, targeted and, comprehensive responses."
#LandDegradation threatens land's ability to sustain us. The good news: Reversing 10% of degraded cropland can produce food for an additional 154 million people.
▶️Learn how smarter policies & greener practices can turn agriculture into a force for land restoration.
#SOFA2025 pic.twitter.com/8U3yQk9lX4
— Food and Agriculture Organization (@FAO) November 3, 2025
In order to measure land degradation, the report's authors compared three key indicators of current conditions in soil organic carbon, soil erosion, and soil water against conditions that would exist without human alteration of the environment. That data was then run through a machine-learning model that considers environmental and socioeconomic factors driving change to estimate the land’s baseline state without human activity.
Land supports over 95% of humanity's food production and provides critical ecosystem services that sustain life on Earth. Land degradation—which typically results from a combination of factors including natural drivers like soil erosion and salizination and human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, and unsustainable irrigation practices—threatens billions of human and other lives.
The report notes the importance of land to living beings:
Since the invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago, land has played a central role in sustaining civilizations. As the fundamental resource of agrifood systems, it interacts with natural systems in complex ways, influencing soil quality, water resources, and biodiversity, while securing global food supplies and supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Biophysically, it consists of a range of components including soil, water, flora, and fauna, and provides numerous ecosystem services including nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and water purification, all of which are subject to climate and weather conditions.
Socioeconomically, land supports many sectors such as agriculture, forestry, livestock, infrastructure development, mining, and tourism. Land is also deeply woven into the cultures of humanity, including those of Indigenous peoples, whose unique agrifood systems are a profound expression of ancestral lands and territories, waters, nonhuman relatives, the spiritual realm, and their collective identity and self-determination. Land, therefore, functions as the basis for human livelihoods and well-being.
"At its core, land is an essential resource for agricultural production, feeding billions of people worldwide and sustaining employment for millions of agrifood workers," the report adds. "Healthy soils, with their ability to retain water and nutrients, underpin the cultivation of crops, while pastures support livestock; together they supply diverse food products essential to diets and economies."
The report recommends steps including reversing 10% of all human-caused land degradation on existing cropland by implementing crop rotation and other sustainable management practices, which the authors say could produce enough food to feed an additional 154 million people annually.
"Reversing land degradation on existing croplands through sustainable land use and management could close yield gaps to support the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of producers," FAO Director-General Dongyu Qu wrote in the report’s foreword. "Additionally, restoring abandoned cropland could feed hundreds of millions more people."
"These findings represent real opportunities to improve food security, reduce pressure on natural ecosystems, and build more resilient agrifood systems," Qu continued. "To seize these opportunities, we must act decisively. Sustainable land management requires enabling environments that support long-term investment, innovation, and stewardship."
"Secure land tenure—for both individuals and communities—is essential," he added. "When land users have confidence in their rights, they are more likely to invest in soil conservation, crop diversity and productivity."
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States in Emergency Mode as Trump GOP Refuses to Fund Food Aid for Poor Americans
While governors provide temporary relief, "people all over the country, particularly rural families who will be the ones disproportionately harmed by Trump's cruel games, are speaking out," noted one petition organizer.
Oct 30, 2025
As the Trump administration refuses to use existing federal funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, governors are stepping up to help the 42 million low-income Americans nationwide who are set to miss their collective $8 billion in monthly SNAP benefits, as long as the US government shutdown over healthcare continues in November.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday declared a state of emergency and committed an additional $65 million in new state funds for food assistance, bringing the total she's announced in recent days to $106 million.
"The Trump administration is cutting food assistance off for 3 million New Yorkers, leaving our state to face an unprecedented public health crisis and hurting our grocers, bodegas, and farmers along the way," she said in a statement. "Unlike Washington Republicans, I won't sit idly by as families struggle to put food on the table."
While Hochul's funding for food banks and pantries has won her praise, Citizen Action of NY, Hunger Free America, and VOCAL-NY are calling on her to go even further. They said in a joint statement that "we agree that the federal government is illegally, immorally, and senselessly denying food assistance to 42 million people," but "the facts don't support Gov. Hochul's claim that no state can fund SNAP benefits to their residents."
"We urge her to use state funds to pay for all or some of November SNAP benefits, just as multiple other states have already done," the groups said. They noted that Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Democratic Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer "committed to funding SNAP benefits for the entire month of November," while Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham made a similar commitment for the first 10 days of the month, at which point the state government will revisit the situation.
Other governors are taking action more in line with Hochul. As the New York Times detailed: "California is releasing $80 million to bolster food banks in the state. Connecticut is allocating $3 million for that purpose, and Minnesota $4 million. On Thursday, Illinois set aside $20 million—$10 million from a new emergency reserve fund and $10 million from the state’s Department of Human Services—for seven food banks."
"In Hawaii, Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, is diverting a $100 million surplus from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program to help families with children pay their housing and utility bills, freeing up money in the family budget to be spent on food instead," according to the Times.
Arizona Mirror reported that Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs "announced Wednesday that she would disburse $1.5 million in leftover American Rescue Plan Act Covid relief funds to Arizona food banks, and that she would put another $300,000 toward an emergency fresh food program called Food Bucks Now."
BREAKING: Democrats just tried to pass a standalone bill to fund WIC & SNAP to make sure families don't go hungry during the Republican shutdown. Republicans BLOCKED it. So Trump won't use emergency funds to keep SNAP running, and Republicans won't let any bills pass. Shameful.
— Senator Patty Murray (@murray.senate.gov) October 29, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Over two dozen Democrat-led states are also suing the Trump administration over the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) refusing to use a contingency fund to at least partly cover November SNAP benefits. A federal judge appointed to the District of Massachusetts by former President Barack Obama began hearing arguments in the case on Thursday morning.
US District Judge Indira Talwani "appeared skeptical of arguments by Justice Department attorney Jason Altabet that the contingency funds could not be used to fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown," Reuters reported. During the hearing in Boston, Talwani told the government's lawyer, "You have money that was appropriated that could be used during this fiscal year."
A coalition of charitable and faith-based nonprofits, local governments, small businesses, and workers' rights groups filed a similar lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island on Thursday. The complaint, filed by Democracy Forward, declared that the Trump administration has "needlessly plunged SNAP into crisis" and asked the court to "immediately grant temporary relief to ensure that millions of Americans can continue to receive essential SNAP benefits."
The USDA has a contingency plan to keep SNAP running during a government shutdown — but the document laying out that plan has been deleted from the agency’s website.www.notus.org/trump-white-...
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— More Perfect Union (@moreperfectunion.bsky.social) October 30, 2025 at 10:25 AM
President Donald Trump and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins are under similar pressure from the more than 50,000 people who have signed a MoveOn Civic Action petition, launched Wednesday night in partnership with Rural Organizing.
"Donald Trump is holding food for families hostage to force huge cuts to healthcare," said Rural Organizing's Shawn Sebastian. The government shutdown began at the start of the month because the White House and congressional Republicans wanted to maintain their funding plans, while Democrats pushed legislation to undo the GOP's recent Medicaid cuts and extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. Americans who get health insurance on ACA marketplaces are facing an imminent premium surge.
Sebastian said that "people all over the country, particularly rural families who will be the ones disproportionately harmed by Trump's cruel games, are speaking out for themselves and for their neighbors, by demanding USDA Secretary Rollins meet her responsibilities to the American people, follow precedent, and continue food assistance programs during the shutdown."
Trump is willingly withholding SNAP benefits from over 40 million Americans because he would rather use hunger as a bargaining chip than tap into emergency funding.It is a government’s job to protect its citizens, not use them as pawns.
— MoveOn (@moveon.org) October 29, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Two New York Democrats on Capitol Hill, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Josh Riley, made a similar demand in a Thursday letter to Trump and Rollins signed by the state's entire Democratic congressional delegation, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
"With less than two days before benefits are halted, we urge USDA to use SNAP's available contingency funds to pay out November benefits, which would cover more than two-thirds of all benefits," they wrote. "USDA can then use its transfer authority, as it did for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), to cover the remaining gap and ensure benefits remain uninterrupted."
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