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.
Iowa has a budget of $8.5b, and 339,000 people bellow poverty line, that’s counting adults too. So $40 a month for the 3 months of summer multiplied by the pop below poverty is $40.6m, or 0.04% of the budget. That is a drop in the fucking bucket, even before trying to figure out how many of those 339,000 people are children eligible under this program. For reference, 1/5th of the Iowan population are minors. And this is a federal program, so Iowa wouldn’t even be paying for the full bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/IA/PST045222
Iowa attempts to force women to have children against their will with a 6 week ban, and restricts it by only having a small handful of providers, then denies them the resources needed to raise the children that result from said restrictions. This means unwanted, unafforded children are born to suffer. They pretend this is a good deed.
It doesn’t take long to overflow the bucket by adding small drops.
Which is why only programs that do good or are vital services should be added.
Food for impoverished children easily counts for both.
Just a little bit more, it’s for a good cause is not a good gauge, any program could be shoehorned into those criteria.
It’s a lunch program for summer.
It’s 40 million dollars
For children
Saying “for children” doesn’t make money appear
I’m not surprised the people trying to “Protect The Children” are defending letting children starve in the comments!
How do you anger a Republican? Use tax dollars to bail out Billionaires or use tax dollars to feed STARVING CHILDREN?
Once it’s out of the womb, it’s your problem.
Except it is. And is in everyone’s best interest to do so.
