Republican governors in 15 states are turning down food money for 8 million children

Republican governors in more than a dozen states are shutting out more than 8 million children from a new federal food assistance program to support lower-income families this summer.

Thirty-five states, including 13 states with GOP governors, have enrolled in the plan, which provides an additional $120 per child to buy food during the summer months when such assistance is not available in schools, where many American children rely on free or reduced lunch programs.

The plan was part of a bipartisan budget agreement in Congress two years ago. But Republican governors in a dozen states with some of the highest rates of children living in poverty are turning it down.

Some officials said the administrative costs to implement the Summer EBT plans in their states were too high, or fired out dismissive, ideologically driven objections to food assistance programs for families in need. “I don’t believe in welfare,” Nebraska Governor Jim Pillein toldThe Journal Star. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt said it merely adds “more bureaucracy for families to wade through.”

Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi – which has the highest rates of children living in poverty and the highest rates of food insecurity in the US – rejected the program as an attempt from President Joe Biden and Democratic officials to “expand the welfare state.”

More than 22 per cent of Mississippi’s households do not have enough food to eat to maintain a proper diet, according to a recent US Census Bureau report. Twenty-eight percent of the children in the state live in poverty, nearly twice as much as the national average.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said “an EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic”.