Iowa’s population is about 3.7 million people. Almost 750,000 are registered Iowa GOP voters, and about 115,000 participated in the Iowa caucuses, which Donald Trump won with 56,260 votes. Forty percent of the registered voters tossed a paper in a brown bag with another candidate’s name marked. Twenty-one percent caucused for Ron DeSantis, and 19 percent for Nikki Haley. Although the Trump campaign will exaggerate Monday night’s result, it was a colossal waste of money for a state that rarely picks a winner. Ron DeSantis, who turned out to be a ne’er-do-well when competing against Donald Trump, spent an estimated 30 to 40 million dollars campaigning on TV alone. His total vote count was 23,420, and he did not win one of the 99 Iowa counties he so proudly touted he visited.
The party that warns about election shenanigans seems to look the other way when it comes to purchasing support. A Florida political action committee under the control of Ron DeSantis donated to political legislators in Iowa following their endorsements. According to a New York Times article published on January 4,
“The group, called Great American Comeback, gave a total of $92,500 to 14 legislators between October and December — all of whom had earlier endorsed Mr. DeSantis, the records show. That figure includes $15,000 each to two of Mr. DeSantis’s most prominent legislative endorsers, Amy Sinclair, the Iowa State Senate president, and Matt Windschitl, the Iowa House majority leader.”
Before I lose more of you with facts and figures, the point I am making is how money in politics is treated like a game of Monopoly, while money for hungry children is sequestered like a precious commodity not to be shared among people in need. Fifteen—love the fetus, starve the child Republican governors rejected a food program for hungry children of forty dollars a month for three months during the summer. DeSantis is one of the fifteen governors rejecting a federal stipend for an estimated 8 million children.
Why three months
The three months is to continue to feed poor and underfed children for the three months that school is closed. Many kids depend on the free breakfast and lunch they receive from schools. What happens to the stomachs of those children from June to August when school is closed? Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said there is no need to feed children year-round “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.” The buzzword ‘welfare’ was used by Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen (R), who said directly, “I don’t believe in welfare.” Pillen also seems to have a problem with poor children enjoying a meal at home, saying,
“We’re gonna take care of every one of these kids through the summer, feeding them,” said Pillen. “We just want to make sure that they’re out. They’re at church camps. They’re at schools. They’re at 4-H. And we’ll take care of them at all of the places that they’re at so that they’re out amongst (other people) and not feeding a welfare system with food at home.”
Unfortunately, the governor’s theory falls apart because when kids are at home, they get hungry, too. The Republican party—that granted two trillion dollars in corporate welfare tax cuts now wants to nickel and dime children to death (literally).
Vote Against Guns