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Iowa Gov Refuses Fed $ for Food Because Kids are Too Fat [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-12-25  

Apparently Iowa has decided that giving low income families a little extra money to buy food in the summer months when their kids aren’t getting school lunches is a really bad idea.

DES MOINES, Iowa — 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.

While it costs the states something to participate in this program — it’s a bargain. They only have to cover half the administrative costs of the program. The federal government covers the other half of administrative costs and all the actual money going to families. Estimates are that it would cost Iowa about $2.2 million — about $10/child (for the whole summer), and only 0.1% (.001) of the $1.83 billion budget surplus Iowa has from last fiscal year.*

And this at a time when Iowa food banks are reporting big increases in food insecurity for families.

So it’s hard to imagine why any governor (or state legislature) wouldn’t jump at the chance to provide food to hungry children at such a minimal cost.

But Governor Kim Reynolds has a really really good reason for refusing this money — it’s her deep concern for the health of children!

"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.

See, giving poor families money for food contributes to obesity!

The governor isn’t like Marie Antoinette who famously (maybe) said “let them eat cake” when told that the peasants had no bread and were starving. Not at all.

Gov. Reynolds’ views are so much more aware than Marie Antoinette, maybe even woke! Reynolds is saying, in essence, “let them not eat.”

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*The cost per child estimate and the % of the budget surplus are my calculations based on the data given in a couple of different articles.

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/25/2213792/-Iowa-Gov-Refuses-Fed-for-Food-Because-Kids-are-Too-Fat?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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