Iowa will not participate in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family over the summer to help with food costs while school is out.

Iowa will not participate this summer in a federal program that gives $40 per month to each child in a low-income family to help with food costs while school is out, state officials have announced.

The state has notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will not participate in the 2024 Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children — or Summer EBT — program, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education said in a Friday news release.

“Federal COVID-era cash benefit programs are not sustainable and don’t provide long-term solutions for the issues impacting children and families. An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic,” Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in the news release.

…

A bipartisan group of Nebraska lawmakers have urged the state to reconsider, saying Summer EBT would address the needs of vulnerable children and benefit the state economically, the Journal Star reported.

  • @[email protected]
    16•11 months ago

    The nearby verse is more on point https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 25%3A42-46&version=NLT

    42 For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. 43 I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

    44 “Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’

    45 “And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’

    46 “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

    But religious right wingers who even know this part of the Bible will do some backflips to justify that they don’t have to help those people. I once encountered someone telling me it only applied to missionaries.

    • @Mirshe
      1•11 months ago

      My mom seems to believe it applies to VOLUNTARY giving, and “if the govt is taking your money and doing it without your input it’s not honoring Christ’s intent”.

      • @[email protected]
        1•11 months ago

        People do a lot of backflips to justify that “render under caeser what is caesar’s” doesn’t mean “pay your taxes”

        13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. 14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax[b] to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”

        But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

        “Caesar’s,” they replied.

        17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

        And they were amazed at him.