# 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:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2024, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/41 "2024-01-10T20:37:17Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > In all, 15 Republican-governed states ended up rejecting the summer food program for hungry kids. Unpaywalled repost of Washington Post article: [https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/republican-governors-in-15-states-reject-summer-food-money-for-kids/ar-AA1mKabW](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/republican-governors-in-15-states-reject-summer-food-money-for-kids/ar-AA1mKabW) ---
**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:** [January 10, 2024, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/42 "2024-01-10T20:52:51Z")
Ensuring the federal government isn’t doing good for their state is an important part of ensuring their mantra that the Feds are a useless obstruction to be shut down remains believable to their low-information audiences. ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/43 "2024-01-11T01:21:18Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I know in my area the Feds keep dumping migrants on us as an unfunded mandate Slight hijack, but, yikes…I hadn’t heard about this one! Any sort of citation I can follow, please? Dan ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/44 "2024-01-11T01:34:30Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > > The only sense I could make out of it is that they want to make children leave their houses and they think if the kids have enough to eat at home they’ll never want to go anywhere. > > That’s fucked up. Let them forage through dumpsters so they get enough fresh air?! They may not have access to your upscale dumpsters with air fresheners installed. On the other hand (the one that hasn’t been severed) I hear that there are fans in slaughterhouses, and there’s always the chance to snag a bit of Great Plains Sushi. Dan ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/45 "2024-01-11T02:12:57Z")
Bloody entitled kids. Let them eat [pagpag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagpag) ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/46 "2024-01-11T15:07:05Z")
> [@Dandan](#): > > > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > > > I know in my area the Feds keep dumping migrants on us as an unfunded mandate > > Slight hijack, but, yikes…I hadn’t heard about this one! Any sort of citation I can follow, please? > > Dan There’s a whole thread where this statement has been largely debunked: [Why are the Feds not paying for the refugees?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-feds-not-paying-for-the-refugees/995646) ---
**Author:** ![Dandan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@Dandan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dandan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/47 "2024-01-11T21:51:32Z")
Thank you Dan ---
**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:** [January 12, 2024, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/48 "2024-01-12T17:54:22Z")
“unfunded mandate” is nowadays pretty much a RW disinformation epithet. Once can safely discard anything you read or hear containing those words. That wasn’t true 30 years ago, but this isn’t then. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/49 "2024-01-15T22:28:28Z")
I prepared a thread on this for Politics and Elections and discovered I was a month too late. h/t Discourse. Here’s the rant, which broadens the topic somewhat. **15 Republican Governors agree: poor kids eat too much and our state economy is too strong. Part of a trend.** GOP governors refuse federal aid for grocery assistance during the summer, a program worked out during the 2022 bipartisan budget agreement. This wasn’t an issue of state budgeting: they just don’t like the idea of feeding kids: it’s welfare you know and children don’t vote. Owners of grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and other approved retailers do vote, but that’s not enough to persuade 15 Republican governors. Nor is their state economy important to them: otherwise they wouldn’t turn down this federal aid. > **[Republican governors in 15 states reject summer food money for kids](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/01/10/republican-governors-summer-lunch-program/)** > > The federal program, set to start this summer, was approved as part of a bipartisan budget agreement in 2022. This is part of a broader trend. Traditional conservatives like Nelson Rockefeller believed in progress, but felt that government programs should be designed carefully, taking time to cross t’s and dot i’s. There’s a legitimate debate around the generosity of the safety net at the federal level: the US’s is less generous than other high income advanced economies, but hard right Reaganauts believed the US should cut welfare spending more. But Reaganauts never turned down federal aid at the state level. Nor did John Kasich of Ohio. To advocate that takes you further right, into the reactionary zone. As Adam Serwer said, ["The Cruelty is the Point](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/)". Even today, 10 Republican states have [turned down Medicare Expansion](https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/), though it would be funded approximately 90% by the Feds. Perhaps they think their state economy is too strong, which is odd since all of them baring Texas and Wyoming are below average in terms of [Gross State Product per person](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP). It turns out that if you want to keep someone in a ditch, you have to climb into a ditch with them. I’m an optimist: it can always get worse. Beyond reactionary are those who don’t believe in democracy or free and fair elections but do like scapegoating certain minority groups. Call them neo-fascist, with the neo prefix being optional. Think Mussolini or Viktor Orbán. Beyond neo-fascist are those who engage in eliminationist rhetoric. That puts you on a road to genocide. And beyond that are those who act on eliminationist rhetoric at a large scale basis, affecting hundreds of thousands or more. Nazis. We’re not there yet. But back to the thread title. Here’s a list of states that turned down aid for hungry kids: all have Republican governors. Alabama - Governor Kay Ivey Alaska - Governor Mike Dunleavy Florida - Governor Ron DeSantis Georgia - Governor Brian Kemp Idaho - Governor Brad Little Iowa - Governor Kim Reynolds Louisiana - Governor Jeff Landry Mississippi - Governor Tate Reeves Oklahoma (though not 3 sovereign tribal areas) - Governor Kevin Stitt South Carolina - Governor Henry McMaster South Dakota - Governor Kristi Noem Texas - Governor Greg Abbott Vermont (the hell?) - Governor Phil Scott Wyoming - Governor Mark Gordon ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/50 "2024-01-16T00:51:56Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Mississippi - Governor Tate Reeves > Oklahoma (though not 3 sovereign tribal areas) - Governor Kevin Stitt Nebraska was omitted-Governor Jim Pillen (multimillionaire corporate pork producer) ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147/51 "2024-01-16T14:48:41Z")
These kids just need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps! Related: > **[Fast-food giants overwork teenagers, driving America’s child labor crisis](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/jan/14/fast-food-giants-overwork-teenagers-driving-americ/)** > > More than three-quarters of child labor violations in the first nine months of 2023 were in food service with most of those at franchised brands. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republican-governors-of-ia-and-ne-opt-out-of-summer-food-programs-for-children/995147.md?page=2)