Gov. Bill Lee: Punishing Poor Children and Lying About It

This year Tennessee and Indiana joined 13 other Trump Party states to opt out of a federal summer program to help feed schoolchildren whose parents need the help. Instead of telling the truth about his decision to shortchange children in need, Tennessee’s bible-waving governor, Bill Lee, chose to deny the facts.  From Truthout:

. . . In a statement provided to NBC News, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee described the Summer EBT [Electronic Benefit Transfer] program as a pandemic-era program, when in fact it grew out of a USDA pilot program launched in 2011. The USDA’s evaluation found the money reduced food insecurity among American children by a fifth. Tennessee even participated in it in its final year in 2018. 

Lee also said the program was “mostly duplicative” because other programs, like the Summer Food Service Program, already existed. That program typically serves free meals to kids at specific sites, but only about one in six eligible children receive meals through it. Couch, for example, works from midday until as late as 11 p.m. on some nights, leaving no time to take her children there. 

The existing programs “are not enough to serve the families who need support during the summertime,” said Signe Anderson, senior director of nutrition advocacy at the legal nonprofit Tennessee Justice Center. Some Tennessee counties don’t have any summer meal programs; those that do don’t always operate every day and may open in the middle of a work day. Less than 65,000 Tennessee children participated in summer lunch programs in 2023, compared to the 700,000 children served by Summer EBT last year.

Janice Cleveland’s 17-year-old granddaughter is one of the 700,000 served last year who now isn’t receiving any food assistance. Last summer, Cleveland, who gets by on disability insurance and Social Security income, was able to pay her bills and have enough to feed her granddaughter thanks to Summer EBT. But this year she was confused when the benefits didn’t show up. She called the number on the back of her card and was told her state wasn’t offering the program. “That was a big blow,” she said, adding that she hasn’t been able to afford soap and other necessities. She is unable to take advantage of the pre-selected food at summer meal sites given that she’s diabetic and has a sensitive stomach and has to be very careful about what she eats. 

Stories of families losing access to food are widespread. “We’ve heard from parents who haven’t been able to pay [their] bills,” Anderson said. “We often hear from parents who skip meals so their kids can eat during the summer time.”

Instead of participating in Summer EBT, Tennessee created its own program to send one-time $120 payments to 25,000 students in just 15 counties at a cost of $3 million. Running Summer EBT statewide, officials estimated, would have cost about $4 million, though that bill could have been smaller if the state had applied for a $1.1 million federal grant to cover administrative costs. 

“The economics of it doesn’t make sense when the state could have reached 700,000 kids across the state,” Anderson said. “It feels almost cruel to do something so limited when you know you could be serving so many more kids.”