Kim Reynolds should have taken federal money to help kids eat in the summer

Iowa’s government should use every resource at its disposal to avoid kids going hungry. But Gov. Kim Reynolds has chosen a different path, passing up almost $29 million in direct federal assistance to families.

Her administration will have an uphill climb to demonstrate — as she promises — that it will meet the needs of the state’s children more thoroughly than it would with the extra aid.

Children’s welfare is what actually matters here. But Reynolds’ announcement has set off two weeks, so far, of anger and confusion among Iowans and invited mocking from national commentators.

“It still flabbergasts me when governors and state legislatures refuse FREE MONEY! from Uncle Sugar that will help their constituents, and when they refuse it out of ideological fanaticism, religious extremism, or pure cussed meanness,” writes Charles Pierce in Esquire.

State: Program is unsustainable, is redundant with other offerings, and fosters obesity

Those aren’t the reasons Reynolds and two of her agency administrators shared in a news release that was emailed out 72 minutes before the start of a three-day weekend including Christmas. But the justifications they did give are no more compelling.

A lot of words are attributed in that statement to Reynolds, Health and Human Services Director Kelly Garcia, and Education Director McKenzie Snow. But they boil down to these arguments:

• Debit cards given to families to buy food during summer were appropriate during the COVID-19 pandemic but no longer.

• The lack of restrictions on the cards mean they would be used too often on unhealthy food during an obesity epidemic.

• Iowa’s state programs can better meet children’s nutritional needs (and are more deserving of federal subsidies).

Kim Reynolds' arguments don't justify withholding food assistance from children

It’s hard to decide which of those ideas strains credulity the most. (Or whether they’re more or less galling than Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen’s declaration about declining the program: “I don’t believe in welfare.”)

It’s macabre to argue soberly whether feeding children is financially sustainable outside a global pandemic. But, taking Reynolds at her word, Congress judged differently in 2022 when it made the debit card program permanent, requiring states only to agree to pay a portion of costs and help with administration. U.S. Agriculture Department records show about two-thirds of states have opted in for summer 2024. As with previous cases where Reynolds turned down federal money, her stand for fiscal responsibility will have far less impact than Iowans missing out on the help that other Americans receive. And, remember, those Iowans include children in food-insecure households.

Reynolds’ obesity non sequitur — “An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic” — has been skewered skillfully online since Dec. 22. Suffice it to say it’s insulting to low-income families, who apparently aren’t among the Iowans Reynolds trusts to do the right thing. EBT cards can be used on most grocery items, including nutrient-dense foods.

To be fair, that won’t matter if the state keeps Snow’s pledge in the news release: “We are already leveraging family-focused, community-based solutions to support child nutrition and well-being in the summer, and we look forward to expanding these existing partnerships.” It’s a big promise, and these officials need to be held accountable for it.

But the Summer Food Service Program and anything resembling it can never match the convenience of Summer EBT, and that’s an enormous drawback. While the food and academic enrichment options associated with the Summer Food Service Program are valuable, children have to be at a certain location at a certain time to take advantage. Parents or guardians might be unable to manage it during their workdays. Transportation assistance is rare to nonexistent. An extra $40 of groceries per child per month that can be purchased anytime is a far more useful benefit for many families.

Iowa has given itself a very tall task, for no good reason

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s promotional materials also push back, with factual support, on Iowa’s talking points: “Summer EBT has been tested through a decade of demonstration projects, and rigorous evaluation has shown that Summer EBT effectively mitigates food insecurity and improves diet quality.”

On top of all this, the federal money would largely be spent at Iowa retail stores. But Iowa will forgo those millions.

Garcia — who has made tangible improvements in the former Department of Human Services, now merged with the Department of Public Health — gave noncommittal but vaguely optimistic remarks at a public meeting Dec. 14 about whether Iowa would participate in the summer debit card program. That made the decision to opt out a little more disappointing.

While some might believe that the Reynolds administration has squandered any benefit of the doubt, the editorial board isn’t quite ready to say the state cannot impress with its summer nutrition strategies. We’ll watch closely. But the entire challenge is needless. Reynolds should have taken money. It’s distributed in a family-friendly way and feeds hungry children.

Lucas Grundmeier, on behalf of the Register's editorial board

This editorial is the opinion of the Des Moines Register's editorial board: Carol Hunter, executive editor; Lucas Grundmeier, opinion editor; and Richard Doak and Rox Laird, editorial board members.

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This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Summer EBT program should have been an easy yes for Kim Reynolds, Iowa