The fact that its been so normalized to be this openly shitty and callous toward frigging children... i dont even know how to react to this any more.

Im not saying its hopeless, but I feel like a lot of people on the "lets not let children go hungry" side of the fence are almost left speechless by these idiots. But i feel like thats almost part of their strategy - stunning the opposition. There has to be a better response.

What's the best way to respond to this kind of brazen cruelty? (Besides voting and campaigning for candidates who arent sociopathic).

Beyond disgusting. Keep the kids hungry so they can't learn while sitting in their underfunded classrooms. Uneducated masses ripe for the conservative picking. Can't see through their lies if you've never been taught how to think. I hate it here...

Why….. I grew up on free and reduced lunches. The return on investment here is immense.

Gosh... Just imagine that not guaranteeing a meal to children, preventing them from eating in some cases, is what you want more than anything.

Simply blows my mind.

imagine being in the strategy meeting with your team, when they suggest a play based on suspending withdrawing food from child would go well with your voters.

imagine agreeing to go with it. getting a speech written about it and one day standing at the lectern to say in front of crowd of assembled people "it is not our responsiblity to feed children". and then pausing for applause and going home and telling your spouse, "today went great".

in this supply chain of inhumanity, there were so many opportunities for the heart to say "yo...something is off here.....cant quite put my finger on it.......but it doesnt seem.....right ?."

to sail through all those checkpoints of human decency, and go through with it, is nothing less than psychopathy.

Why aren't they self aware enough to realize they sound like cartoon villains?

You know, I try to keep an open mind and try to understand how the other side could come to the conclusions they do, but sometimes they really make it difficult. I genuinely don't get how this could be construed as anything other than malicious. What's the benefit in this? How is this "thinking of the children?" How did a political party come to represent views that are so aggressively anti-humanity? It's such a bizarre platform to attach yourself to so proudly and openly.

Tearing down women's rights. Ruining queer people's life, especially trans people. Making sure children can't eat for free. Wow. Quite the priorities over at the Republican party.

I'm not American, I've just been looking from afar for a long time now. But from everything I'm seeing... it feels like they're going to be in for quite the rude awakening in 2024.

“It’s not enough that I should eat, children should starve. “ -the gop.

It's really quite shocking how the GOP agenda can be predicted by asking yourself, "What's the worst thing someone would in a given situation?". What's even more shocking is that they have engineered the political framework to disproportionately grant them enough power to sometimes pass these regressive policies. But for most of America, sigh, just another Thursday...

How did this get normalized? Why is this even something that is even considered debatable? As a society, feeding our children should be the first priority.

I'm flubbered.

What's crazy to me is it seems like they just want children to suffer. They want to force women to give birth, but then don't give a shit about what happens to the children after. On top of that, it's like they are trying to make them suffer even more for their parents being unable to provide.

I could somewhat get attacking programs for adults. Still disagree, but I guess it's the "they should be able to provide for themselves" mentality. But then doing this for children when they are literally unable to provide for themselves or have any responsibility for being hungry. Yes, let's make the helpless children suffer.

Disgusting times we live in.

What. The. Fuck. Is wrong. With. These people?

My Daily Reminder that this is a gold plated dystopia.

I'll say it again and again and again: If you assume Republicans to be foreign agents tasked with destroying the US economy, bankrupting its government, ruining its international image and killing as many Americans as possible, their actions make perfect sense.

The whole point in these kind of moves is to cause congestion and exhaustion in political movement.

It’s a struggle to campaign for actual improvements when we’re all stuck fighting garbage like this all the time.

It’s deliberate obstruction and a standard GOP play

They're not even bothering to lie any more, and yet everyone still votes for them.

You know that scene in Final Fantasy 8 where Edea announces her evil plan to a huge crowd and calls them morons and they all clap and cheer? This is like that.

They care about children until they’re born then they want nothing to do with them. Oh wait they also use children to pass anti lgbt legislation.

Just evil… no nuance needed.

It's just cruel. A disgusting, cruel mindset from those who genuinely just want to hurt others.

Anyone supporting this lacks the most basic of morals. There is no excuse for this.

These are the same people who can expense up to $79 per day for food and drink. They're fine taking hand outs, they just don't want you to have any.

I’m reluctant to use the word “evil”, but I can’t think of another word that accurately describes their goals and behavior. They simply hate anyone who isn’t just like them. Different race? SUFFER AND DIE. Different economic bracket? SUFFER AND DIE. Different beliefs on sexuality? SUFFER AND DIE.

They think that others are a threat to the “moral fabric” of America, but they themselves are a threat to the mere existence of millions of Americans.

Give the poor nothing and we will have nothing left to lose. eyes guillotine hungrily

God this is depressing. What kind of world do we live in and when will we start creating a better one?

Attention conservatives: you can't ~~marry~~ legally rape children or force them into child labor if you already starved them to death first.

what they fail to understand is that for poorer communities, kids rely on these lunches for meals when their families can't afford to buy food

I imagine they twirled their mustaches and maniacally laughed while announcing this. How much more cartoonishly villainous can they get?

Pro-life, pro-child, pro-family values 👍🤗💖💯

Just normal GOP evil.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch", they said :(

To pull more of the article into the comment section:

The Republican Study Committee (of which some three-quarters of House Republicans are members) on Wednesday released its desired 2024 budget, in which the party boldly declares its priority to eliminate the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, from the School Lunch Program. Why? Because “CEP allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.”

Of note is that the CEP is not even something every school participates in; it is a meal service program reserved for qualifying schools and districts in low-income areas. The program enables schools that predominantly serve children from low-income backgrounds to offer all students free breakfast and lunch, instead of means-testing them and having to manage collecting applications on an individual basis. As with many universal-oriented programs, it is more practically efficient and, as a bonus, lifts all boats. This is what Republicans are looking to eliminate.

It’s the kind of provision that many would want every school to participate in. Why not guarantee all our children are well fed as they learn and think about our world and their place in it, after all?

Given that the Republicans are nominally a Christian party, has no one in the party had a look at what Jesus taught about feeding the hungry? It is pretty clear, and it is NOT this.

Really putting evil front and center this time, huh.

Fuck your kids, billionaires need yet another tax break. -Republicans.

Aren't these the same people who claim that an unborn baby has every right to live, even if they're only like 4 cells and still dividing? Does like... that right to life just end once they're birthed? I really don't get how these people justify their stupidity.