North Dakota Senators Who Voted Down Free School Lunches Want More Free Lunch For Themselves

And they say there's no such thing.

Late last month, North Dakota legislators had a chance to dedicate $6 million over the next two years to providing free lunches to children living below double the poverty line — and given that the poverty line for a family of four is $62,000, that seems pretty darn reasonable. Especially considering that the federal government already pays for meals for children living under 130% of the poverty line.

Alas, the bill failed by one vote. Enough legislators decided that those kids would be just fine eating maybe a plain cheese sandwich every day for a few years to kill the bill.

Many of those legislators, this week, had a chance to vote on another bill expanding the amount of money to be spent on lunches — and this time they voted yes. Except, instead of spending more tax money on lunches for children, they would be spending more tax money on meals for themselves and other state employees. The increase will be from $35 to $45 per day for each employee and will cost taxpayers $1 million over the next two years.

Via INForum:  

Thirteen Republican senators, including Majority Leader David Hogue and Assistant Majority Leader Jerry Klein, voted to increase meal reimbursements after voting against the free school lunch bill.

Hogue declined to comment on the reason he voted for Senate Bill 2124 and against House Bill 1491. He said North Dakota lawmakers often are asked to devote state funds to expand federal programs, like the National School Lunch Program or Medicaid.

“I don’t have a good answer for you as (to) why we do it sometimes and not others,” Hogue said.

Surely it is a mystery!

Klein said he doesn’t think there’s “any correlation whatsoever” between the two bills, noting that lawmakers have to “treat each issue separately.”

State employees should get a higher per diem because inflation has made eating out much more expensive, he noted.

That is fine! There really is no problem with the senators raising their meal reimbursements along with inflation — especially since they only get paid $515 a month anyway. Where there is a problem is in not extending that generosity to hungry children. Could they at least scrounge up some money to buy the children some matches so that they can warm their hands while standing outside the Senate cafeteria watching the legislators eat their delicious, nutritious meals? Or could they invest in more gruel?

The other senators who voted against meals for poor school children include Randy Burckhard, David Clemens, Bob Erbele, Judy Estenson, Curt Kreun, Judy Lee, Randy Lemm, Larry Luick, Don Schaible, Terry Wanzek, and Mike Wobbema. Very nice people, all of them.

They can say there's no correlation here, but there absolutely is. It shows that they can see their own hardships, they can see how they need $10 more a day to pay for their meals, but they can't put themselves in the place of hungry children being forced to sit through science class with grumbly bellies. That says something about who they are as people, and it's not anything good.

The senators will have another chance to vote to feed some hungry kids, however, as the House has put the provision in another bill it recently passed. If just one of them can find it within their black, Dickensian-villain hearts to change their vote, these kids may not miss out on pizza day after all.

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