Maybe Kevin Stitt just hates kids
Refusal to accept available federal funds for hungry Oklahoma children just the latest instance of an ever-growing list of examples
You know how one in five children in Oklahoma face “food insecurity.”
You don’t? Well, they do.
So says an annual report from Kids Count, which collects data and charts such things and, it should be said, the findings of which are not being challenged, even as our state, thanks to our governor, has opted out of a federal program designed to alleviate that insecurity.
It’s called the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program — Summer EBT — and you can read about it here if you’re really interested, but the crux of it is this:
For each Oklahoma child who qualifies for free or reduced-price meals during the school year, the Summer EBT program would have distributed $40 per month, per child, to address those same issues when school lets out.
It would have. But it won’t.
Thank Kevin Stitt.
Why would he do that?
Good question.
There’s what he said, and we’ll get to that, and then there are the values his actions, time and again, have exposed, which have nothing to do with what he said.
It’s worth our examination and discovery, and that was, and still will be, today’s column.
Yet, while Stitt’s latest intransigence when it comes to serving the state that elected him surfaced on Tuesday — and was reported out by The Oklahoman’s Dale Denwalt on Wednesday — Thursday’s headlines revealed something new that must be addressed, too.
The headline?
“Some disaster recovery funds from 2019 storms across Oklahoma have yet to be spent.”
Kind of a zinger.
What’s happened to them?
Has corruption struck?
That was a long time ago.
What the hell?
If you read the story, maybe it’s not that bad.
The figure is $3.7 million, but the Stitt administration has blown far more than that on myriad other things so what’s the big deal?
Also, the unspent figure represents just about 10 percent of the original recovery grant of $36.3 million.
Also, says Becky Samples, director of marketing and communications for the state commerce department, it’s not unusual to have millions of federal disaster relief dollars intended for survivors lying around more than four years after disaster strikes.
“There are unmet housing needs even though this disaster occurred several years ago,” she said. “The CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds for disaster recovery are not designed to provide immediate relief like FEMA funds. These funds have a longer timeline and are designed to address longer-term recovery efforts.”
Especially, one presumes, when you go four years without disbursing them.
So, they’re administered by the commerce department? That’s interesting, because when you think about disaster relief, isn’t it all about turning a profit?
Wait, it’s not?
You’ve likely never heard of him, but a guy named Hopper Smith, a retired brigadier general, runs the commerce department.
I’m sure he has a civic soul, and the department’s website demonstrates he has a large staff.
Yet, go there yourself, scroll down and take a look at everybody’s job description and see if you can find anybody for whom disbursing $3.7 million in disaster recovery funds might naturally fall.
Seems like they might more naturally fall under the leadership of state secretary of human resources Dr. Deborah Shropshire or, perhaps, a housing department or secretary if only Oklahoma had one.
Anyway, you achieve what you emphasize, and there’s $3.7 million in unspent federal funds designed to address a years-ago weather incident lying around in a department that appears particularly unsuited to spend it responsibly, yet quite suited to spend it on other things entirely.
Having addressed poor governance by omission, let’s now address poor governance by commission.
Kevin Stitt wants to steal food out of needy Oklahoma children’s hands why?
Again, score one for KOKH-25, Oklahoma City’s Fox affiliate, which scored an apparent face time interview with the governor, even as he was driving. You can watch the report here. And you can read all of Stitt’s words in it here:
We can all agree we don’t want anybody to go hungry in the state of Oklahoma and I can assure you that that’s not going to be the case …
Think about this rationally. What’s the difference this year between last year and the year before? We all of a sudden have a population of kids that are going to be hungry in the summertime? That just makes no sense that, in 2024, if we don’t opt into this new government program, that kids are not going to be fed in the summertime. I mean, it just doesn’t make any rational sense …
We’ve pushed back as the Biden administration has tried to push social policies … related to funding, so that’s always a concern that we look at these grant programs.
Honestly, it’s hard to argue with gobbledygook like that.
He can assure us kids won’t go hungry, I guess, because as long as they’re not starving to death they’re not going hungry?
What’s the difference between this year and other years?
Maybe the only difference is, come this summer, the federal government is seeking to alleviate the cost of feeding children who’ve already qualified for food assistance the rest of the year, so just freaking take it and say thank you.
At the very least, it’s an economic boom to the state requiring only partial administration from the state.
Pushing back on Biden social policies, really?
So you’re willing to annually take more from the federal government than Oklahomans pay taxes to it already, you’re just not willing to let the feds feed hungry kids.
Got it.
Thank you.
The greatest infuriation is our governor can say these things and make them sound agreeable to so many preprogrammed to agree with him.
Because if you live in this state and you’ve bought the decades old talking points of politically inclined evangelicals and the religious right, all a Republican politician must do is claim to be standing up to Democrats to keep their subjects from rushing the gate.
Yet, while that’s what Stitt’s doing politically, what he’s doing in the real word is giving Oklahoma children the finger.
They can’t vote. Screw ’em.
In this case, he won’t take part in a federal program that literally puts money in the hands of economically disadvantaged families with children.
When it comes to the farce that’s school choice, he’s literally taking money from a pot funded by all Oklahomans to give away to economically privileged families already sending their kids to private schools.
When it comes to scholastic athletics, he claims to have saved girls sports, which are under attack by nobody, while happy to marginalize children and teens who don’t easily fall into gender or sexual identities right out of, say, 1956, who have plenty on their plate already without politicians treating them like piñatas.
By omission, his administration falls short.
By commission, he punishes.
Maybe he just hates kids.
Well, maybe not all kids.
Just Oklahoma kids.
We get it Kevin.
Loud and clear.
Nothing says “owning the libs” like hungry children...
Or he hates POOR OK kids? He seems fine, as you say, with giving RICH OK kids vouchers for private schools...$7500 a year per kid, while refusing $40 a month for poor kids.