If not extra SNAP dollars, what is Governor’s plan for child hunger?

Iowa has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children program. The purpose of the program is to help feed poor kids when school meals aren’t available. Gov. Kim Reynolds says we should not take additional federal money to help families feed their kids during the summer. She says giving these families money for food doesn’t solve the long-term problem. Seems to me it might help in the short term though. Why not at least do that? What’s your solution for the long-term problem, governor?

It has been said if you give a man a fish he eats today. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life. Under some circumstances that may be true. The problem is the governor won’t give people fish, or teach them to fish. She just doesn’t want another Democrat program spending money in her state to show how little she and her Republican associates are doing to fix the problem. Children are hungry. Food banks are stretched to the limit. What is this mystical solution you have in mind, governor? Ban books with the word hunger in them? More tax cuts?

Scott Byram

Iowa City