Let me count the ways Missouri kids suffer under a GOP supermajority.
As Jess Piper points out, the faux ‘pro-life’ state of Missouri, with a budget surplus in the billions, has schools which deny children lunch if they owe more than $25 to the cafeteria. Those kids are left hungry for the afternoon if not the entire school day. Other schools may offer children who are ‘behind’ in their lunch payments a cheese sandwich or a PBJ. Besides being wholly inadequate, this anti-child practice is instantly stigmatizing to these children.
Missouri carries a budget surplus in the billions of dollars. But Missouri legislators still refuse to write and pass any legislation to help feed children in Missouri. This, even though when the Legislature is in session, each legislator receives a taxpayer funded per diem for their food and expenses.
A little math here: Missouri has 163 State Reps and 34 State Senators. The Reps receive $121 per day each session in per diem for a total of $19,723. The Senators receive $125.60 per day each session in per diem for a total of 4,270.40.
When combined, Missouri legislators bill the taxpayers 23,993.40 per day during the session. That total would pay for the lunches of around 6,800 kids.
To be clear: I don’t think we should deny per diem to lawmakers, but I do think lawmakers who get a “free lunch” have a lot of nerve not feeding Missouri school kids.
Though they refuse to generate legislation that assures ALL children in Missouri are fed without charge in school, members of the faux ‘pro-life’ Missouri legislature support legislation for child marriage, do not support access to safe child care, are destroying child labor laws, and allow a child to open carry a weapon even should the weapon be bigger than the child.
Missouri has been under the boot of a GOP supermajority for 22 years. Over two decades. Can I share some facts about my “pro-life” state, specifically related to our children?
Read it and weep.
In Missouri, a child of an unspecified age may open carry a loaded rifle down Missouri streets, because the GOP supermajority refused to mandate a minimum age to carry a loaded gun.
In Missouri, a child who has been the victim of sexual assault will be required to bear any resulting pregnancy.
In Missouri, more than 30% of school districts run a 4-day-week due to a lack of funding provided by the state.
In Missouri, over 1/2 of children live in spaces deemed childcare deserts.
In Missouri, 80% of children test positive for lead in their blood.
In Missouri, child labor laws are being gutted.
In Missouri, child marriage is still legal.
It’s overwhelming to read the statistics on Missouri children when we live under a GOP supermajority — a supermajority that claims to be the “pro-life” and “family values” party.
When children are hungry during the school day, it is well documented that they are — understandably — much less effective learners and far more likely to engage in disruptive classroom behavior. All for the cost of being denied lunch in this deeply dishonest, anti-child and family false ‘pro-life’ state with its billions of dollars in budget surplus.
That the debate on reproductive care, health and abortion services has long been manipulated into ‘pro-life’ versus ‘pro-choice’ has always been a false dichotomy. There is no ‘pro-life’ among the GOP but ‘forced birth.’ There is no ‘pro-choice’ but otherwise guaranteed medical confidentiality.
The issue should never have been prioritized by Dems; ‘liberals’ as ‘pro choice’ since, instead, it is a matter of ‘pro-privacy and medical confidentiality just as is given every other American. But not women with regards to reproductive care and abortion.
It is not ‘pro-choice’ but pro-HIPAA since abortion services are NOBODY’S business but the woman, her MD and (maybe) her family if the woman decides the latter is appropriate. And, many times, whether it be medical or social-emotional, there is absolutely NO choice towards the medical need for abortion services.
When my wife and I had our third miscarriage during her second trimester a number of years ago, she could have easily died if she hadn’t received immediate surgical care for what has now all been grossly subsumed into ‘abortion services.’ My wife could have died for being forced to carry an already dead fetus.
Abortion IS medical care and is NOBODY else’s business.
If one believes that the ‘god’ they have chosen to follow disproves of abortion, don’t get one and take your own chances. Do not sacrifice other women to your false ‘god.’
A fetus matters in Missouri (as in many other Red states) until birth. But a real, live, hungry child in Missouri (as is also true in many other false, dishonest ‘pro-life’ Red states) can go to hell.
To help finally end the GOP’s long standing supermajority in Missouri, support bluemissouri.org