She says it costs $2.2 million to feed them kids, with the federal government covering the other $2.2 million.

Let's set aside that Iowa has an FY24 spending budget of $8.5 billion, out of which $2.2 million is basically nothing....

Rather, let's make this a 🅲🆄🅻🆃🆄🆁🅴 🆆🅰🆁 🅸🆂🆂🆄🅴! Parental rights, right? That thing where parents can uncritically direct "the care, custody, and control of their minor children." It sanctifies the views of parents, elevating them over government intrusion. If a federal program provides $40 a month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs via an EBT card, then, presumably, those parents are making the best choices for their children.

Right?

Not so! says Kim Reynolds. Low-income families are too stupid, she implies, not to give their kids nutritious foods when childhood obesity has become an epidemic. By not participating the federal program then, Reynolds is ostensibly protecting children. But really, her non-participation undermines sanctified parental choices in Iowa to provide for their kids.

And who is she to supersede parental rights? A Republican governor.

As a lifelong Iowan I am ashamed that we continue to employ this woman. Paying her a salary is not sustainable for Iowa, she is holding back this great state from so much potential it's enraging.

She added, “If the Biden Administration and Congress want to make a real commitment to family well-being, they should invest in already existing programs and infrastructure at the state level and give us the flexibility to tailor them to our state’s needs.”

In the same speech she talks about how kids don't need money for food and conflates issues of hunger and obesity. I do not trust your "states rights" bs to actually feed children. That money will absolutely go into a donors pocket of not strictly allocated (which is exactly why they don't want to be told how to spend it).

Iowa forces women to have children against their will, then denies them the resources needed to raise them. This means unwanted, unafforded children, born to suffer. They pretend this is a good deed. Monsters.

Iowa has a budget of $8.5B. This program has about 93k eligible families in the state. At $40 per month, assuming 3 months for summer, the total cost is about $11M. Or 0.10% of their state budget. It's a rounding error...

So... In order to score cheap political points and attack the Biden administration, she's blocking food for hungry kids that her state doesn't even have to pay for.

What a disgusting creature

The people who claim to be the most christ-like are usually the least christ-like.

We just want to make sure that they’re out. They’re at church camps. They’re at schools. They’re at 4-H. And we’ll take care of them at all of the places that they’re at, so that they’re out amongst (other people) and not feeding a welfare system with food at home,” Pillen said.

Nebraskan gov is a piece of shit too. Only wants to help the children if they get sent to indoctrination camps. Fucking trash. They're not even pretending to be human.

I wish the media wouldn't give politicians that say 'x costs too much' a free pass. Often, not doing x can cost more than doing it and rhetorically hiding behind 'it costs something' leaves the reader to assume it's reasonable to not do x because of cost.

For example, it costs something to put a homeless person in an apartment and give them time with a social worker- and the alternative to doing that (which involves paying cops to move them around and destroy their stuff, to investigate the crimes homeless people are perpetrators and victims of, to process them in and out of local emergency rooms, etc) costs substantially more than putting them in housing.

If feeding kids at a rate of $40/month is too expensive, what is the cost of not feeding them? (There's the expenses of being sick, of acting out and involving disciplinary action or just taking class time, and let's not forget that opportunity cost from not developing kids to their potential if they aren't getting proper nutrition) It's well-understood that nutritional poverty involves foregoing brain development to a child's full potential, and that in turn costs society whatever capacity that kid doesn't get to fulfill as a consequence. Not feeding kids is a way to keep your country under-performing and given the GOP's politics I honestly think they need that in their voters.

We will never get better than this, think about it. It's been years and years of seeing this same shit over and over. Iowa chose this out of touch POS for themselves and they will continue to.

Oh but it's sustainable to give billionaires and corporations tax cuts? It's sustainable to own multiple million dollar plus homes? Allowing private jets is sustainable? An entire economy devoted to weapons manufacturing in a country of starving, struggling workers is sustainable?

These fucking boomers never progressed beyond their teenage years. I can't help but see our leadership as highschool students that need to grow the fuck up, abandon their awful, failed special interest policies, and start doing their fucking job; which is providing the average person with the means to live a fulfilled life. Every. Single. Politician. Is an abject failure that should have been cast to the wolves decades ago.

Fuck her. What an absolute joke. I know I'm not adding anything of value to this conversation, but I'm just so mad.

This is an argument that is used all the time in politics and business when a (partial) solution to a big problem is presented.

"Well there may be unintended consequences to this solution so we can't do anything until every single potential problem that may arise sometime in the future is completely worked through and solved."

I mean if you are going into space then that is probably the way to do things but trying to solve childhood hunger? Yea you got time to fix the problems as they arise.

Republicans only understand the politics of cruelty these days.

paying a salary to the Iowa governor is not sustainable.

Letting billionaires live is not sustainable

Jesus: "Then go broke."

"An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,”

"Don't give them lil chonkers any more lunch money!!" - The governor of Iowa.

Okay, how about UBI, then? That's been proven over and over to be an effective soluti—

No? Something something bootstraps? Oh, then go fuck yourself with a cactus!

An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition because the prices of food are skewed towards making low income families only afford junk food. The government has the power to fix this with subsidies and other things I'm aware of but forget the names of but they choose not to.

she simply wants to hurt poor people.

it's not a 'covid-era' thing anymore, it's a permanent program now--one paid for by the feds, who will also reimburse states for half of their expenses to distribute those funds to those eligible.. which really isn't that much seeing how that most of the recipients probably already applied-for or are receiving other benefits for low-income households.

Ok, so should the Federal Government slash Iowa's emergency response fund by the same amount? Iowa, bootstraps, etc.

If ever it seems like there's not enough to go around, blame the people who have too much.

If the money goes directly from the federal government to the people why does the state get a chance to say no? Why not just give it out anyways?

The issue is more complex than what is printed. There are shortages of workers at restaurants/bars and slaughter facilities. We need these children to get to work. /$

But I'm sure she tried to get bezos to open Amazons corp office through massive tax breaks.

Republicans are ghouls.

GOP say silly things non stop.

Starve her

Sure is sustainable to receive bribes- I mean… donations in the tens of thousands though, isn’t it?

This is basic eugenism. What she says is that poor should not have kids as they can't afford them.

This is because the GOP is purposefully garbage at actually governing.