Opposing “welfare” by advocating that fat kids go hungry

One thing about the fascist turn of the Republican party in the Trump era is that it tends to obscure the extent to which normal ordinary reasonable moderate hey it’s a two party system Republican ideology is actually extremely horrible, even without reference to people who want to get rid of liberal democracy and install a reality TV dictatorship. (Side note: our kids insisted on renting Home Alone 2 last night, which you will be shocked to hear is the epitome of cash-grab hackwork by all the very talented people involved. Donald Trump in his 1991 manifestation makes a cameo. The kids did not recognize him).

Nebraska’s Republican governor on Friday reiterated his rejection of $18 million in federal funding to help feed children who might otherwise go hungry while school is out.

Nebraska will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children — or Summer EBT — program, Gov. Jim Pillen said in a written statement. That statement came as advocates for children and low-income families held a news conference outside the Governor’s Mansion in Lincoln to call on Pillen to change his mind before the Jan. 1 deadline to sign up for the program.

The program — part of federal assistance made available during the COVID-19 pandemic — would provide pre-loaded EBT cards to families whose children are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches at school. Those families would receive $40 per eligible child per month over the summer. The cards can be used to buy groceries, similar to how SNAP benefits are used.

“COVID-19 is over, and Nebraska taxpayers expect that pandemic-era government relief programs will end too,” Pillen said in his statement. Pillen announced on Dec. 19 that Nebraska would not participate in the program. He has drawn a firestorm of criticism for later defending that stance at a news conference by saying, “I don’t believe in welfare.”

Neighboring Iowa is also opting out of the program, with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds announcing that decision last week and saying, “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”

States that participate in the federal program are required to cover half of the administrative costs, which would cost Nebraska an estimated $300,000. Advocates of the program note that the administrative cost is far outweighed by the $18 million benefit, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates would benefit 175,000 Nebraska children who might otherwise go hungry on some days during the summer.

Great job demonizing the bodies of fat kids, all you enthusiastic supporters of the war on “childhood obesity.” Let me put this in the simplest and most scientific terms: In a developed economy, a huge percentage of the population would be fat even if everyone had excellent nutrition and physical activity habits, because that’s how human physiology actually works in conditions of economic abundance. So focusing on fat bodies, especially the bodies of fat children, as a public policy “problem” that needs to be “solved” is both incredibly stupid and incredibly destructive, especially when Republicans get involved to moralize the issue in their particularly disgusting Protestant Work Ethic Plus Grifting Teleevangelist fashion, which (spoiler alert) they definitely will!

I’m not even going to comment on the ironies of the governors of Nebraska and Iowa being opposed to federal government “welfare.”