Why Doesn't Bill Lee Want to Feed Hungry Kids?
His plan is neither conservative nor just
Fiscally irresponsible and unjust.
That’s how the Tennessee Justice Center describes TN Gov. Bill Lee’s plan to reject federal funds to support a summer food program for kids.
Instead, Lee’s administration will create its own program - spending the same amount of state money to feed a lot less kids.
“Instead of serving 700,000 Tennessee children through Summer EBT, TDHS’s program will reach a max of 25,000 children. Despite spending nearly as much as it would take to serve the entire state, the Tennessee program will reach less than 4% of the children that received Summer EBT in 2024.”
Lee rejected $75 million in federal funds that would have supported a program to add funds to EBT cards for families whose kids receive free/reduced lunch during the school year.
Instead, Lee will create a program that will serve only 15 of Tennessee’s 95 counties and leave out 675,000 kids. The state financial obligation is nearly identical in both programs.
This plan is not conservative. In business terms, the ROI is terrible. So, it’s both dumb and mean.
But, that’s par for the course for Gov. Lee. When Democrats were joined by some Republicans in pushing for an end to the state’s regressive grocery tax, Lee conveniently left it out of his budget.
While other states - like Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are moving to end their grocery tax, Lee’s not even looking at a sales tax holiday this year.
Thirteen states tax groceries, but the number could dwindle. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has proposed eliminating the grocery tax in her state, according to a report. Kansas eliminated the sales tax on food on Jan. 1, according to a release from Gov. Laura Kelly.
Oklahoma eliminated the sales tax on food in 2024. The measure is returning $411 million to the taxpayers, lawmakers said.
So, if we’re not feeding kids in the summer and we’re not lowering the grocery tax that disproportionately impacts lower-income families, what is Gov. Bill Lee doing with our state’s money?
Well, spending $500 million to build a stadium for the Tennessee Titans in the most expensive publicly financed stadium project in the country.
On top of that, the state in recent years at Lee’s behest has passed more than $1 billion worth of corporate tax breaks.
But surely, Lee and his friends at the legislature want to do something to help kids?
Maybe they support a plan to make school meals free for all kids every day?
Again, no.
According to a recent article in Salon, students in K-12 public schools in Tennessee owe a total of more than $50 million in school lunch debt.
“. . . according to 2024 statistics from the Education Data Center, on a state-level, Tennessee has $51,610,062 in student lunch debt and about 285,770 food insecure students.”
So, for $50 million, the state could cancel all school lunch debt for every kid in the state.
But, they won’t.
And, year after year, lawmakers reject plans - offered by both Democrats and Republicans - to make all school meals free for all kids.
So, if Tennessee can’t afford to feed kids at school OR over the summer, what’s the state doing with its money?
If you guessed a $1.1 billion (over 5 years) school voucher scheme, you’d be correct.
Yes, Gov. Lee is handing out coupons for wealthy families to save $7075 on the private school tuition they are already paying.
No, after the first year, there aren’t income limits on the vouchers - so that means a discount paid by taxpayers for families with kids already enrolled in private schools.
In Bill Lee’s Tennessee, hungry kids keep going without while wealthy families (and pro football team owners) get taxpayer-funded handouts.
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Why? Short answer: He's an unrepentant asshole who gets off on heaping suffering on groups he finds less human than himself.
Not content to rob Tennessee public education of funding, Gov Bill Lee and his corrupt state legislators will now inflict more cruelty upon our state’s most vulnerable population - our children. When will the voters of Tennessee connect the dots between their votes and their financial demise?