Kids As Political Pawns

In public policymaking as in private, everyday life, choices have consequences.

So it is with Gov. Kevin Stitt’s unconscionable decision to withdraw Oklahoma’s participation in the federal summer food program for kids.

The initiative was to have provided eligible families about $40 a month for each child to help provide sustenance they receive the rest of the year through school breakfast and lunch programs.

This is no small matter in a state where one in five children frequently go to bed hungry and food insecurity plagues families in urban poverty pockets and economically distressed rural areas.

Stitt brays constantly about making Oklahoma a Top 10 state. But Oklahoma is in the Bottom 10 – No. 46 – when it comes to child well-being, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s latest annual Kids Count.

Yet the governor opts not to participate in the summer food program that would help nearly a half-million food insecure kids. Why? Apparently, he’s concerned about possible strings the feds might attach. Or that federal rules are too opaque for Oklahoma to maneuver, even though 36 other states are managing.

Besides, his excellency opines, “I am satisfied that kids are going to be fed in the summertime through the regular course of DHS and programs for the needy that we have in the State of Oklahoma.”

Few working to help improve the sad plight of so many Sooner kids would agree. They already are scrambling to figure out how to fill the void – $120 that should have been loaded onto electronic benefits transfer [or EBT] cards that families could use to purchase groceries.

Thankfully, some of the state’s tribal nations are stepping up, too.

As Hunger Free Oklahoma CEO Chris Bernard put it in an interview with Tulsa’s KJRH-TV, “You're going to see a lot of folks struggling who don't need to because we are giving up the opportunity to leverage a bunch of federal dollars to address a problem we know we have.”

The hard truth is Stitt has turned hungry Oklahoma children into political pawns. He plays to hard-right zealots who knee-jerk trash almost any federal initiative that helps the least among us.

This is insane, if for no other reason that the federal money Stitt rejected is money Oklahoma taxpayers already sent to Washington. Now, instead of our tax dollars returning to help our kids while school’s out, they will be sent to other states to support food insecure kids.

Sadly, we’ve seen this movie before. Not too long ago, GOP-controlled statehouse leadership refused for at least a decade to embrace Medicaid expansion, meaning the very same thing happened: Oklahoma tax dollars already sent to D.C. ended up supporting health care in other states.

That was a politically driven choice as well. Republicans felt they couldn’t afford to embrace anything related to the evil, socialist ObamaCare.

Rank-and-file Oklahomans finally figured out they were being screwed and took matters into their own hands, approving SQ 802 in 2020 that forced Medicaid expansion.

The result: Many rural hospitals on the brink of financial collapse are now solvent and thousands who couldn’t afford health care coverage now have it.

Unfortunately, the deadline has passed for Oklahoma to participate in this year’s federal summer food program. And it appears the Legislature has no legal recourse to overturn the governor’s reprise of Marie Antoinette.

But there is one sure-fire way lawmakers can help: take a sliver of the $1.3 billion in new revenue available to spend the next fiscal year and cover the cost of the governor’s misfeasance.

No child should go hungry in the world’s richest country.