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Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)
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The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.
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Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result.
Why have these governors rejected food assistance, even amid soaring grocery prices and pledges to help families strained by inflation?
Some states, such as Texas and Vermont, cited operational or budgetary difficulties with getting a new system running in time for this summer. These obstacles could presumably be surmounted in future years. In other states, GOP politicians expressed outright disdain for the program.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, for instance, said of the new program, “I don’t believe in welfare.” A spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Children and Families cited vague unspecified fears about “federal strings attached.”
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Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds suggested there was no point in giving this grocery assistance to food-insecure children “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
Reynolds is apparently unaware that obesity is linked to a lack of reliable access to nutritious food and that children in food-insecure homes face a higher risk of developmental problems. This suggests withholding this nutritional assistance hurts not only the state’s children today but also its workforce tomorrow.
This is hardly the only time GOP politicians have worked to swipe food from the mouths of hungry children — and their moms.
For a quarter-century, Congress had a bipartisan consensus that it would fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, which provides food assistance to low-income families determined to be at nutritional risk. “Full funding” means that the program has had enough money to prevent any eligible applicant from being turned away.
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That consensus fell apart last year, when Republican lawmakers crafted a bill that would have eliminated or reduced benefits for 5.3 million kids and pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding adults.
Thankfully, that bill didn’t pass. But with the Republican-controlled House still unable to agree on broader government spending numbers before a deadline next week, yet another stopgap bill extending existing funding levels is looking more likely. Keeping funding flat would also result in millions of hungry young children and pregnant and postpartum adults being turned away, since food costs and program participation rates have risen sharply, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Elsewhere in this ongoing federal budget battle, Democratic lawmakers have been begging their Republican counterparts to consider expanding the child tax credit to make more poor children eligible.
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When Congress last passed such an expansion, in 2021 (with only Democratic votes), the program was phenomenally successful: It slashed child poverty nearly in half. But the expansion was temporary. When it expired, child poverty doubled to its pre-pandemic level.
There are a few Republican lawmakers, such as retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who have heroically supported reviving some form of a child allowance, even for poor kids. But for the most part, others in the party have been somewhere between indifferent and hostile to the idea, instead gunning for more tax breaks for corporations.
Indeed, if a version of a child tax credit expansion ultimately materializes — and it might in the next few days — that will happen only because Democratic lawmakers explicitly held those corporate tax breaks hostage in exchange for aid to poor kids.
Republicans keep assuring the American public that they really, truly care about helping women forced into bearing children even when they’re not financially or emotionally ready to do so. They claim they want to protect youngsters and invest in their financial future.
Time for the GOP to put its money where its mouth is.
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In the 18 months since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Republican officials have had ample opportunity to prove they’re not merely antiabortion but also pro-child. They keep failing.
GOP politicians across the country have found new and creative ways to deny resources to struggling parents and children. Take, for instance, the summer lunch program.
Under a new federal program, children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches can also receive food assistance during the summer. The policy, created as part of the bipartisan budget deal in 2022, gives eligible families $40 per month per child, or $120 total over the summer. It often works essentially as a top-up for food stamps, since these families must buy more groceries when their children lose access to nutritious school meals when classes go out of session. (It’s similar to a temporary program offered during the pandemic, though it’s much less generous.)
The federal government pays the entire cost of the benefits associated with this new food program and half the administrative costs. The program isn’t automatic, though; states had to opt in by Jan. 1.
Republican governors across 15 states chose not to, as my Post colleague Annie Gowen reported. Up to 10 million kids will be denied access to this grocery aid as a result.
Why have these governors rejected food assistance, even amid soaring grocery prices and pledges to help families strained by inflation?
Some states, such as Texas and Vermont, cited operational or budgetary difficulties with getting a new system running in time for this summer. These obstacles could presumably be surmounted in future years. In other states, GOP politicians expressed outright disdain for the program.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, for instance, said of the new program, “I don’t believe in welfare.” A spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Children and Families cited vague unspecified fears about “federal strings attached.”
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds suggested there was no point in giving this grocery assistance to food-insecure children “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”
Reynolds is apparently unaware that obesity is linked to a lack of reliable access to nutritious food and that children in food-insecure homes face a higher risk of developmental problems. This suggests withholding this nutritional assistance hurts not only the state’s children today but also its workforce tomorrow.
This is hardly the only time GOP politicians have worked to swipe food from the mouths of hungry children — and their moms.
For a quarter-century, Congress had a bipartisan consensus that it would fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, which provides food assistance to low-income families determined to be at nutritional risk. “Full funding” means that the program has had enough money to prevent any eligible applicant from being turned away.
That consensus fell apart last year, when Republican lawmakers crafted a bill that would have eliminated or reduced benefits for 5.3 million kids and pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding adults.
Thankfully, that bill didn’t pass. But with the Republican-controlled House still unable to agree on broader government spending numbers before a deadline next week, yet another stopgap bill extending existing funding levels is looking more likely. Keeping funding flat would also result in millions of hungry young children and pregnant and postpartum adults being turned away, since food costs and program participation rates have risen sharply, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Elsewhere in this ongoing federal budget battle, Democratic lawmakers have been begging their Republican counterparts to consider expanding the child tax credit to make more poor children eligible.
When Congress last passed such an expansion, in 2021 (with only Democratic votes), the program was phenomenally successful: It slashed child poverty nearly in half. But the expansion was temporary. When it expired, child poverty doubled to its pre-pandemic level.
There are a few Republican lawmakers, such as retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), who have heroically supported reviving some form of a child allowance, even for poor kids. But for the most part, others in the party have been somewhere between indifferent and hostile to the idea, instead gunning for more tax breaks for corporations.
Indeed, if a version of a child tax credit expansion ultimately materializes — and it might in the next few days — that will happen only because Democratic lawmakers explicitly held those corporate tax breaks hostage in exchange for aid to poor kids.
Republicans keep assuring the American public that they really, truly care about helping women forced into bearing children even when they’re not financially or emotionally ready to do so. They claim they want to protect youngsters and invest in their financial future.
Time for the GOP to put its money where its mouth is.
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