The recent attempt by the Trump administration to freeze federal grant funding has revealed that some lawmakers are out-of-touch and unempathetic.
On Jan. 27, a memo from the Office of Management and Budget was sent to all federal agencies to temporarily pause their activities effective the next day. This caused a maelstrom of confusion across the nation.
On the day after the memo’s release, Georgia Rep. Rich McCormick appeared in a CNN interview praising the move by the Trump administration.
When asked how this would affect federal agencies, including those that provide school lunches, he launched into a rant about how he spent his childhood working and that kids should work to pay for their meals.
McCormick echoed a familiar conservative philosophy when speaking of government spending unrelated to the military or expensive AI projects: The poor should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
McCormick and those like him don’t seem to realize that these free school lunches aren’t a loophole for kids to live off government money. These free meals can be the difference between a good day and a bad day for food-insecure kids.
According to the U.N. World Food Program, children need proper nutrition for healthy development and to fuel their brain functions. Without these necessary nutrients, a child’s ability to learn could be negatively impacted along with their physical health.
Yet for many children, the only meal they get each day is at school.
In 2023, almost 18% of American households with children faced food insecurity, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As citizens struggle to survive and pay their bills, it is hard to see how McCormick expects every child to help their situation by working for a minimum wage that hasn’t changed in more than 15 years.
To say that children who rely on free lunch just don’t want to work is ridiculous and ignorant.
The reality is some children live in poverty and don’t have easy access to food. Free school lunches could be one of the only ways these children can consistently have food throughout the day to ease the burden they feel at home.
Removing funding for programs helping hungry children is wrong. Food should not be a luxury and helping the poor should always be the priority of any nation.
Conservatives like McCormick seem to want children to grow up quickly and become financially independent. But what about disabled children, children who are too young to work and children without reliable transportation to the workplace?
Many factors could prevent a child from working, even without looking at child labor laws.
McCormick and those like him have a lack of empathy for the Americans they are supposed to lead.It’s especially disheartening to hear this from a representative of Georgia.
In 2023, Kids Count reported 18.8% of Georgia’s children under the age of 18 were living in families with incomes under the poverty line.
It is puzzling how McCormick thinks getting rid of federal funding could help the impoverished citizens of his state and the nation. Even more concerning is how the Trump administration has shown interest in cutting programs that would help Americans easily access healthcare, food, education and housing.
In a poll by the Food Research & Action Center in 2021, 63% of voters nationwide said they supported free meals for students. It’s obvious that many people support this idea and by continuing to speak out, real progress can be made.
Children are our future, and when more than 13 million American children live in poverty, it is our responsibility to help them overcome obstacles in their education. We and the government should do everything in our power to help the hungry and poor instead of telling them to just work harder.
