Let The Kids Starve: MI GOP Says School Meal Programs Are Pointless

MI GOP put forth a budget that decimates public education services

While the protests raged in LA and the federal government deployed troops against it’s own people, the Michigan GOP decided it was time to attack one of our most important foundations, Education. You see, there are a few things we as a society have agreed on. Air is invisible, Everyone in Michigan loved Dan Campbell and kids eating breakfast and lunch helps them learn. Well, the Michigan GOP is currently questioning that last one.

Earlier this week, the MI House passed a republican lead budget that slashes the Michigan School Meals Program funding out of it. This would cut off over 850,000 children from have something as simple as lunch at school. It’s just another feather in the cruelty cap of the GOP.

During hearings in Lansing, Rep. Natalie Price (D-Berkley) brought up the cuts and asked her GOP colleagues “…you say you want to improve education scores, and we know that this program (free lunches) has helped. Why would cut this program now especially with the increased price of groceries?”

It is at that point that Rep. Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw) asks “Can I have proof that meals have helped school performance?”

It’s a retort that befuddles the mind. Not only have a multitude of studies proven that hungry kids perform worse at school, it also speaks to the lack of empathy from the GOP. Virtually all developed nations provide meals for schoolchildren, going backwards here is further proof that logic and data-driven solutions are not the objective for the GOP.

But the ride doesn’t stop there. Here’s a full list of all the things their new budget cuts from public education:

• Eliminates universal free school lunches and breakfasts

• Wipes out funding for early reading and literacy intervention

• Cuts career, technical, and skilled trades education (CTE)

• Slashes funding for school safety initiatives

• Removes student mental and physical health funding, eliminates school nurses, and ends basic health screenings (vision, hearing, dental)

• Ends stipends for student teachers and loan reimbursement for new teachers—making it harder to recruit and retain quality educators

• Cuts funding for at-risk students and English Language Learner programs

• Forces curriculum changes to whitewash American history—downplaying slavery, labor, suffrage, and LGBTQ+ rights—and defunds schools not aligned with a Trump-style “patriotic history”

• Ends support for rural school districts' transportation

• Defunds after-school and summer learning programs

• Halts progress toward universal pre-K for all Michigan children

• Violates the Michigan Constitution by diverting public funds to private schools

This is a massive divestment of the public education system. If one cares about the future of America’s youth, then there’s no way you make some of the cuts that you see here. The Michigan GOP is committed to dismantling public education and this budget is further proof of it.

However, the GOP in its haste to pass this bill, mistakenly made it so gender-neutral bathrooms (a bane of their existence) would actually become a thing. So that’s kind of funny.

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