Rep. Melissa Romano and others have written several recent editorials that excoriate Gov. Gianforte for refusing to accept $10,000,000 from the federal government to supposedly fill the need to nourish 73,000 Montana children over the summer. Romano says,”…that money will just go to waste if we don’t use it.” What if we do spend it as she wishes? Will most or all of it be wasted then? For one thing, very few children in Montana are undernourished, but are they neglected? Fed a poor diet? Would their guardians prefer to spend the money elsewhere? Of course!
If we do spend as she says, then what of next year and the year after? Will we need a “program” a cadre of directors, field officers and other bureaucrats of the poverty industry? Of course we would. And why do we have inflation in the first place? Mostly because government spends more than its revenues so it prints money and cuts the value of money that we have already made and possibly saved and invested. Wouldn’t it be far better to carefully target expenditures and help people where absolutely necessary, and give children the skills and opportunities they need to prosper?
People are also reading…
My parents grew up during the Great Depression and World War II; through considerable difficulties my grandparents fed them, they fed us, I fed my children, they fed theirs, and I expect my grandchildren to feed their children without government assistance. That is the norm. So it is that Rep. Romano et al. are the ones “Playing politics on the backs of hungry children” though mostly imaginary, and they are doing it for political gain.