# Republican governors of IA and NE opt out of summer food programs for children **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 26, 2023, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147 "2023-12-26T03:49:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/1 "2023-12-26T03:49:13Z")
As an Iowa resident, this is yet another one of Kim Reynolds’ hare-brained ideas. So much for being pro-life, folks. > **[Iowa, Nebraska Opt Out of Summer EBT for Children](https://www.ntd.com/iowa-nebraska-opt-out-of-summer-ebt-for-children_962485.html)** > > Iowa will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) for Children, state officials announced on Friday. “Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues... ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/2 "2023-12-26T05:12:38Z")
You’re confusing pro-life with pro-the living. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/3 "2023-12-26T05:30:43Z")
I see Reynolds also chose the employ the “if poor people have it so bad, how come they’re so fat” canard. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/4 "2023-12-26T11:58:33Z")
“The cruelty is the point.” ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/5 "2023-12-26T12:01:51Z")
This is really makes a lot of Republican actions a lot clearer. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/6 "2023-12-26T12:37:52Z")
I suppose the underlying plan is that if Those People have no money then Those People will quit breeding. A cursory glance at all of history or at the current reality in the poorer countries on Earth will quickly show that this plan is hare-brained. Said another way, reality has a (strong) anti-rightwing bias. And right wingery has a strong anti-reality bias. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/7 "2023-12-26T12:42:40Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I suppose the underlying plan is that if Those People have no money then Those People will quit breeding. It’s nothing so rational, no logical cause-and-effect plan. Poor people are disfavored by God; otherwise they wouldn’t be poor. So they must be punished for whatever transgression caused the disfavor. Helping the poor, easing their suffering, would be contrary to the dictates of Heaven. The powerful truly do have a perverse belief that they are acting in concert with God’s will. The cruelty is merely proof of their holy intentions, and is emotionally satisfying to the faithful. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/8 "2023-12-26T12:44:35Z")
“An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition” Yup, not being able to afford to buy any food does though! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/9 "2023-12-26T13:46:59Z")
IOW > Those People will just waste any money we give them. So why bother. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/10 "2023-12-26T13:56:48Z")
Again and again, Republican governors choose policies that kill their constituents. > **[Widening gap in death rates between Democrat and Republican in the US | BMJ](https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/study-finds-widening-gap-in-death-rates-between-us-areas-that-vote-for-democratic-rather-than-republican-party/)** > > Democratic areas saw greater improvements than Republican areas in death rate over the past two decades. > **[America’s Surprising Partisan Divide on Life Expectancy](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/01/america-life-expectancy-regions-00113369)** > > Centuries-old settlement patterns — and the attitudes they spawned about government — are to blame for differences in longevity between red southern states and bluer parts of the country. > **[How red-state politics are shaving years off American lives](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/republican-politics-south-midwest-life-expectancy/)** > > Along Lake Erie, three states show how Republican lawmakers’ decisions over decades on cigarettes and seat belts are shortening life spans. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/11 "2023-12-26T13:56:48Z")
Hey, “$40 in EBT credit per month to each child” is a lot of money to give kids who will still be hungry no matter how much we waste on them! ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/12 "2023-12-26T14:14:27Z")
No kidding. Why help feed these poor kids now? They’ll just be hungry again in a few hours. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/13 "2023-12-26T15:11:40Z")
This isn’t funny, but it is simultaneously poignant and horrifying. My wife’s daughter lives nearby and is a professional full-time foster parent. She works for a combined government / charity foundation that does kid rescue. At any given time she has 5 to 7 foster kids in a group home setting. She’s had preemie infants and tweens, but most are ages roughly 2-8. Some are sibling or more commonly half-sibling groups, but some are unrelated to any of the others. The length of stay with her varies from a couple weeks to 2+ years, with 6-8 months being typical. All told she’s had about 40 children, and we’ve met and shared ordinary meals or holidays with most of them. A few have overt emotional / psych problems, but most are just adorable kids stuck in a rotten situation that we’re all trying to improve, daughter far more than wife & me. Almost every one of them shows signs of never in their short lives having had enough to eat on a regular basis. Not that any of them are stunted or overtly malnourished, but the idea that there is more food than hunger at any particular meal is evidently very foreign to almost all of them. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/14 "2023-12-26T15:43:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I suppose the underlying plan is that if Those People have no money then Those People will quit breeding. I think it’s more like ‘Those People will become so desperate that they’ll take shit jobs for shit wages and put up with People Like Me giving them shit about it. And their children will have to grow up to do the same thing.’ – I don’t know why Politio should be surprised by the results – or why y keyboard is suddenly ating up ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/15 "2023-12-26T15:45:52Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > “The cruelty is the point.” Exactly. By being both anti-abortion and anti-children, Repubs carve out a path of maximum misery for those they traditionally hate, with the added bonus of being laden with misogyny. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/16 "2023-12-26T16:03:37Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I think it’s more like ‘Those People will become so desperate that they’ll take shit jobs for shit wages and put up with People Like Me giving them shit about it. And their children will have to grow up to do the same thing. Exactly this, the GOP wants a permanent class of indentured servants. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/17 "2023-12-26T16:06:21Z")
‘We ain’t givin’ the poors food so what makes you think we’d give them dental care?’ The GOP ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/18 "2023-12-26T16:16:39Z")
Is this program fully funded by the Feds or does the state have to burden some of the cost? I know in my area the Feds keep dumping migrants on us as an unfunded mandate and we are to the point that we don’t have the infrastructure to support them AND we cannot financial support them since the Feds are not paying for them. Just paying devil’s advocate/honest question: is this a situation where it sounds great but it is a federal program they don’t pay for and those states can’t afford? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/19 "2023-12-26T16:54:11Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Just paying devil’s advocate/honest question: is this a situation where it sounds great but it is a federal program they don’t pay for and those states can’t afford? I did a quick Google on EBT, which is a federal program but, like many such programs, it’s mired in federal-state bureaucracies. But the extent of federal funding is irrelevant anyway, for several reasons. For one thing, when federal funding was definitely being offered, as was the case for Medicaid expansion, red states nevertheless refused to implement it, so it seemed more a reflection of their hateful ideology than a budgetary matter. Secondly, anyone with a shred of compassion should realize that providing food for children who don’t otherwise have access to adequate nutrition should **absolutely be a top priority** , especially among those who claim to be so stridently “pro-life”. Beyond just humane compassion, in the long term it’s also very much in the public interest. Is there any doubt that any reasonable person looking through the Republican budget line items would find no end of ill-advised spending that is far less important than keeping children healthy? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2023, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/20 "2023-12-26T17:05:55Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Is this program fully funded by the Feds or does the state have to burden some of the cost? This is spelled out in the OPs article. States have to pay half of the administrative costs (not the payments, just the admin). Unfortunately the article doesn’t give all of the details. It does say that for Iowa it would cost the state $2.2M for some unstated amount of benefits. For Nebraska says the cost would be an estimated $300k for $18M in benefits. So yes there is a cost to the state but it’s pretty small. This seems to be more a case of “we don’t want welfare in our state”. One of the two governors (NE I think) stated as much plainly in the article. I don’t know why the article says for Iowa the benefit is $40/month but Nebraska is $120/month. I think one number is clearly wrong, but don’t have the energy to figure out which one. ETA: OK, I looked it up. It’s $40/month during the summer for kids that normally get free or reduced lunches at school. So it’s filling a real need for kids who might get all of their food at school when it’s in session. Details here: [SUN Bucks (Summer EBT) | Food and Nutrition Service](https://www.fns.usda.gov/sebt) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147.md?page=2)