Reynolds has the nerve to say ‘no’ to extra SNAP dollars

On Friday, Dec. 22, Gov. Kim Reynolds and the heads of the Iowa Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announced that Iowa had notified the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture that the state would decline participation in the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children program, also known as Summer EBT.

The federal program, designed as a temporary pandemic-related benefit that was only made permanent earlier this year, would have provided $40 monthly in the form of an EBT card for three months over the summer in the name of any child eligible for free or reduced-price meals during the school year.

The decision was bound to elicit screams of anguish from Reynolds’ political opposition. But that’s what they do — scream at every action and decision. Of Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion, the progressive left revels in pathos: the appeal to a person’s emotion. Often that’s at the expense of logos, the appeal to logic and reason, and ethos, the appeal of one’s own character and sensibility.

To the pathological left, Kim Reynolds and her Republican cohorts are the villains they crave in order to appeal to your sense of fear and anger. Reopen shuttered schools only six months into the pandemic? Kim Reynolds wants kids and teachers to die. Champion school choice and sign it into law? Kim Reynolds wants to yank education funding and give it all to uppity private schools for rich kids. Decline a federal program because of administrative costs and less-than-ideal outcomes? Kim Reynolds wants children to starve. It gets a bit tiresome.

A more reasoned thinker might dare to look at the big picture and consider the arguments that Reynolds and her administration are making. Reynolds cited administrative nuisance and concerns that SNAP benefits do not fulfill the nutritional obligations to the hungry as childhood obesity remains a rising concern.

Those are valid points. Even federal programs that promise federal funding of the offered benefits almost always involve monetary costs the state that administers them. The Summer EBT program requires that states pay 50% of the administrative costs — and that they administer the Summer EBT program separately from the existing SNAP program. It wouldn’t have been as simple as tossing extra cash onto existing EBT cards.

Reynolds’ administration estimated that separately brokering three months’ worth of $40 benefits per kid through an EBT card would cost the state $2.2 million in administrative expenditures. That’s not a negligible figure — it’s a good 10 percent of the administrative costs the state incurred for the entire SNAP program in FY2020. The $2.2 million figure also represents a significant increase in administrative costs as a percentage of the overall benefits issued when compared to the same from FY2020.

Numbers and statistics appeal to our sense of logic, but even the most unimpassioned thinker can be saddened by the realities of increasing childhood obesity. Between 2017 and 2020, more than one in five children aged 6-19 in the United States were considered obese. Children from low-income households tend to be less physically fit and face a higher risk of obesity than children from higher-income households. Obese children are also more likely to remain obese as adults.

No one — including Gov. Reynolds, or your friendly neighborhood opinion columnist (who was formerly obese) — is suggesting that SNAP participation is a cause of childhood obesity. Nevertheless, obesity and nutrition — or lack thereof — are inextricably linked, and while households that do not receive SNAP benefits are also below the bar, households receiving SNAP benefits fare even worse when it comes to healthy food purchases.

A November 2016 USDA report analyzed point of sale data from over 127 million SNAP/EBT transactions. Over 22% of those dollars were spent on junk foods and sugary drinks. The number one purchase by SNAP households was pop, making up 5 percent of the SNAP dollars spent. Throw in “fruit juices, energy drinks and sweetened teas,” and that makes 10%. Importantly, the POS data analyzed did not include any convenience store transactions.

The evil giant rearing its ugly head right next to childhood hunger is childhood nutrition. Reynolds’ argument is that extra SNAP dollars do nothing to address the nutritional deficits of hungry children. The Summer EBT program might provide short-term food access, but short-term solutions are very good at stalling meaningful change — or impeding it altogether.

If Iowa is to invest more resources, argues Reynolds, Iowa should pursue opportunities that will work. If the federal government wants its programs to lead on childhood nutrition, it should allow states “the flexibility to tailor them to our state’s needs.”

Some attempts have been made to tailor SNAP benefits. In Iowa, legislators in 2023 proposed limiting SNAP-eligible purchases to foods approved under the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, called WIC. Those limitations were arguably too stringent — WIC benefits can’t be used even on basic white bread — and a required waiver from the USDA would have likely been denied.

Other jurisdictions have tried smaller approaches. In 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg requested that the federal government allow the city to try out a ban on SNAP purchases of sugary drinks. It was denied. The state of Maine made requests of both the Obama and Trump administrations to allow them to prohibit buying candy or sugary drinks with SNAP benefits. Denied, and denied.

Evolutionary biologist and former university professor Bret Weinstein put it best in a May 2022 tweet, in which he stated that human beings who exist today do so in a “world in which nutrients that limited your ancestors are readily available in limitless abundance — even for those of modest means.

“Worse still,” continues Weinstein, “what harms you, enriches vendors who spend huge sums triggering your desire.”

In their denial of Maine’s second request, the USDA cited administrative costs to retailers (which indeed wouldn’t have been cheap.) But it brings up an important question — if state or federal legislators were to introduce a bill to prevent SNAP dollars from being used on pop and candy, would it get enough support? Or would anyone who profits from the sale of pop and candy, like grocers, beverage distributors and convenience store chains throw resources behind blocking the change?

We must realize that we no longer live in a world where the nutritional needs of the poor are solely — or even squarely — focused on overall caloric intake. The American diet has changed dramatically over the last century. Food production, distribution, processing and preservation have all made huge advancements, and it’s too easy to favor the sweet and salty over the wholesome and healthy. Sadly, lower-income households are especially vulnerable to that.

The Reynolds’ administration turning down the Summer EBT program isn’t some gutsy political win for her. But leadership sometimes requires being the bad guy. Public entities at any level tend to reflexively buy in to any program that gets free dollars from a higher governing authority. It takes a real spine to say no, especially when your opposition yowls without ceasing.

Help doesn’t begin and end with government programs. Nor should it — ever. Those who bemoan the Summer EBT declination can still do plenty to fight child hunger. Our opinion section has received a number of letters on the subject using words like “shame” and “Scrooge.” Not one of them suggest making a regular donation to a food bank in the form of money or volunteer time. Or maybe reaching out to the single mom who lives down the street to see if she’d like lunches covered on no-school days.

Even those whose voices can reach further haven’t seemed to consider that. On Friday, state Rep. Sami Scheetz posted a video on social media he’d taken outside a local nonprofit with a dedicated food bank, in which he talked about the increase in demand the organization had experienced. Instead of an appeal for renewed local help, Scheetz took the opportunity to rail on how state leaders “don’t give a damn” about child hunger.

“Republican politicians are letting kids starve,” reads the video’s caption.

The only ones who actually believe that are people who already hate Republicans. And theirs is a hunger for loathing will never be sated.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com