this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Iowa will not participate this summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.

The state has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children — or Summer EBT — program, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education said in a Friday news release.

“Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families. An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the news release.

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[–] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 181 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

She says it costs $2.2 million to feed them kids, with the federal government covering the other $2.2 million.

Let's set aside that Iowa has an FY24 spending budget of $8.5 billion, out of which $2.2 million is basically nothing....

Rather, let's make this a 🅲🆄🅻🆃🆄🆁🅴 🆆🅰🆁 🅸🆂🆂🆄🅴! Parental rights, right? That thing where parents can uncritically direct "the care, custody, and control of their minor children." It sanctifies the views of parents, elevating them over government intrusion. If a federal program provides $40 a month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs via an EBT card, then, presumably, those parents are making the best choices for their children.

Right?

Not so! says Kim Reynolds. Low-income families are too stupid, she implies, not to give their kids nutritious foods when childhood obesity has become an epidemic. By not participating the federal program then, Reynolds is ostensibly protecting children. But really, her non-participation undermines sanctified parental choices in Iowa to provide for their kids.

And who is she to supersede parental rights? A Republican governor.

[–] Omgarm@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Just tell them if more poor kids survive until adulthood there's more cheap workforce around.

[–] NounsAndWords@lemmy.world 47 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The kids generally survive anyway, just with stunted cognitive growth....which helps maintain a cheap ~~underclass~~ workforce.

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[–] FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world 116 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As a lifelong Iowan I am ashamed that we continue to employ this woman. Paying her a salary is not sustainable for Iowa, she is holding back this great state from so much potential it's enraging.

[–] SuzyQ@sh.itjust.works 23 points 10 months ago

She is continually undermining our health (can't have high COVID numbers if we stop reporting it), and stripping away at our public schools (voucher program for private schools).

I may be just a transplant but I don't think I can get anymore pissed at this person. Can't believe she won the reelection.

[–] NounsAndWords@lemmy.world 99 points 10 months ago (1 children)

She added, “If the Biden Administration and Congress want to make a real commitment to family well-being, they should invest in already existing programs and infrastructure at the state level and give us the flexibility to tailor them to our state’s needs.”

In the same speech she talks about how kids don't need money for food and conflates issues of hunger and obesity. I do not trust your "states rights" bs to actually feed children. That money will absolutely go into a donors pocket of not strictly allocated (which is exactly why they don't want to be told how to spend it).

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[–] Twentytwodividedby7@lemmy.world 86 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Iowa has a budget of $8.5B. This program has about 93k eligible families in the state. At $40 per month, assuming 3 months for summer, the total cost is about $11M. Or 0.10% of their state budget. It's a rounding error...

[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 50 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The suffering is the point.

[–] sphenoid@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

"Let them eat cake"

-Jesus

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[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 84 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Iowa forces women to have children against their will, then denies them the resources needed to raise them. This means unwanted, unafforded children, born to suffer. They pretend this is a good deed. Monsters.

[–] ClopClopMcFuckwad@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

How else will they fill for profit prisons if they don't deny benefits to children that are unwanted and unloved?

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[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 83 points 10 months ago (8 children)

So... In order to score cheap political points and attack the Biden administration, she's blocking food for hungry kids that her state doesn't even have to pay for.

What a disgusting creature

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

States now do bear an amount of the cost of EBT programs, but it's pretty negligible. I think I saw on another thread that she's basically only saving $2.2m doing this, when IA is already ending the year with an enormous budget surplus (because she and the GOP have cut everything to the bone and then started sawing).

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[–] BetaBlake@lemmy.world 55 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The people who claim to be the most christ-like are usually the least christ-like.

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[–] Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works 47 points 10 months ago (3 children)

We just want to make sure that they’re out. They’re at church camps. They’re at schools. They’re at 4-H. And we’ll take care of them at all of the places that they’re at, so that they’re out amongst (other people) and not feeding a welfare system with food at home,” Pillen said.

Nebraskan gov is a piece of shit too. Only wants to help the children if they get sent to indoctrination camps. Fucking trash. They're not even pretending to be human.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

Why, there are no children at the 4-H club either!

Am I so out of touch!?

...

No

It is the children who are wrong

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[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I wish the media wouldn't give politicians that say 'x costs too much' a free pass. Often, not doing x can cost more than doing it and rhetorically hiding behind 'it costs something' leaves the reader to assume it's reasonable to not do x because of cost.

For example, it costs something to put a homeless person in an apartment and give them time with a social worker- and the alternative to doing that (which involves paying cops to move them around and destroy their stuff, to investigate the crimes homeless people are perpetrators and victims of, to process them in and out of local emergency rooms, etc) costs substantially more than putting them in housing.

If feeding kids at a rate of $40/month is too expensive, what is the cost of not feeding them? (There's the expenses of being sick, of acting out and involving disciplinary action or just taking class time, and let's not forget that opportunity cost from not developing kids to their potential if they aren't getting proper nutrition) It's well-understood that nutritional poverty involves foregoing brain development to a child's full potential, and that in turn costs society whatever capacity that kid doesn't get to fulfill as a consequence. Not feeding kids is a way to keep your country under-performing and given the GOP's politics I honestly think they need that in their voters.

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[–] Daft_ish@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

We will never get better than this, think about it. It's been years and years of seeing this same shit over and over. Iowa chose this out of touch POS for themselves and they will continue to.

[–] Wogi@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Reynolds is the least popular governor in the country. Her first election she only won by .1%. Her landslide victory this last election was mostly due to no one showing up to vote.

There are a LOT of people in Iowa who didn't choose her and never would.

[–] makatwork@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I don't think they should get off the hook so easily. By choosing not to vote, they made thier choice.

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[–] Kase@lemmy.world 37 points 10 months ago

Fuck her. What an absolute joke. I know I'm not adding anything of value to this conversation, but I'm just so mad.

[–] Rooskie91@discuss.online 37 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh but it's sustainable to give billionaires and corporations tax cuts? It's sustainable to own multiple million dollar plus homes? Allowing private jets is sustainable? An entire economy devoted to weapons manufacturing in a country of starving, struggling workers is sustainable?

These fucking boomers never progressed beyond their teenage years. I can't help but see our leadership as highschool students that need to grow the fuck up, abandon their awful, failed special interest policies, and start doing their fucking job; which is providing the average person with the means to live a fulfilled life. Every. Single. Politician. Is an abject failure that should have been cast to the wolves decades ago.

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[–] GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago

This is an argument that is used all the time in politics and business when a (partial) solution to a big problem is presented.

"Well there may be unintended consequences to this solution so we can't do anything until every single potential problem that may arise sometime in the future is completely worked through and solved."

I mean if you are going into space then that is probably the way to do things but trying to solve childhood hunger? Yea you got time to fix the problems as they arise.

[–] Kalysta@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago

Republicans only understand the politics of cruelty these days.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago

paying a salary to the Iowa governor is not sustainable.

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 23 points 10 months ago

Okay, how about UBI, then? That's been proven over and over to be an effective soluti—

No? Something something bootstraps? Oh, then go fuck yourself with a cactus!

Letting billionaires live is not sustainable

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,”

"Don't give them lil chonkers any more lunch money!!" - The governor of Iowa.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 11 points 10 months ago

Starving the children is certainly a solution to the childhood obesity epidemic I suppose

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition because the prices of food are skewed towards making low income families only afford junk food. The government has the power to fix this with subsidies and other things I'm aware of but forget the names of but they choose not to.

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[–] ares35@kbin.social 20 points 10 months ago

she simply wants to hurt poor people.

it's not a 'covid-era' thing anymore, it's a permanent program now--one paid for by the feds, who will also reimburse states for half of their expenses to distribute those funds to those eligible.. which really isn't that much seeing how that most of the recipients probably already applied-for or are receiving other benefits for low-income households.

[–] Neato@kbin.social 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ok, so should the Federal Government slash Iowa's emergency response fund by the same amount? Iowa, bootstraps, etc.

[–] 8bitguy@kbin.social 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The Federal Government should just fund the other $2.2M and shame them. "Okay Iowa, if you can't feed your state's children, we'll pick up the slack for you. Please remember who cared about you in November."

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[–] chitak166@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

If ever it seems like there's not enough to go around, blame the people who have too much.

[–] books@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

But I'm sure she tried to get bezos to open Amazons corp office through massive tax breaks.

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Republicans are ghouls.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If the money goes directly from the federal government to the people why does the state get a chance to say no? Why not just give it out anyways?

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[–] n0m4n@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The issue is more complex than what is printed. There are shortages of workers at restaurants/bars and slaughter facilities. We need these children to get to work. /$

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[–] badbytes@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

GOP say silly things non stop.

[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Sure is sustainable to receive bribes- I mean… donations in the tens of thousands though, isn’t it?

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[–] Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago
[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is because the GOP is purposefully garbage at actually governing.

[–] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 10 months ago (3 children)

This is basic eugenism. What she says is that poor should not have kids as they can't afford them.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Worse. They're rejecting free federal money of $40 PER KID. For no reason at all except 'the money won't be there forever'

Republicans are literally starving children. For no reason.

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