Laura Kelly: What’s to come of Kansas when leaders take food off tables? | Opinion
As Kansans, we take pride in our hard work, our determination, our grit and our independence. But we also value taking care of each other, helping our neighbors when they fall on tough times.
Take Kansas U.S. Sen. Bob Dole’s relentless work to combat hunger. His bipartisan approach reformed and modernized SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and his promotion of the Food for Peace Act helped both farmers here at home and hungry people across the world.
The people of our state have always shared their bounty with one another. Here in Kansas, we don’t believe that children or older adults or those with disabilities should go hungry.
But the weeks leading up to this year’s Thanksgiving have been like no other.
We experienced the longest federal government shutdown in history. And for the first time, SNAP benefits were put in jeopardy. At the beginning of this month, hundreds of thousands of Kansans wondered what their Thanksgiving would be like because President Donald Trump’s administration went all the way to the United States Supreme Court to deny food to hungry children.
Thankfully, Kansans did receive their food assistance.
But unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that elected officials have chosen to veer off the path of ending hunger that Sen. Dole pioneered.
Over the last decade in Kansas, many elected officials have demonstrated an alarming shift toward an extreme stance that leaves more Kansans hungry. At first this push was severe, but gradual: In 2015, at the urging of then-Gov. Sam Brownback, the Kansas Legislature passed the HOPE Act, increasing barriers for Kansans to qualify for SNAP benefits.
This year, these actions have rapidly accelerated at an alarming pace. In April, the Legislature sent a bill to my desk that restricted using SNAP benefits to purchase soda and candy. I vetoed the bill because such changes should be made at the federal level — but then, the Legislature held hostage money for Kansas’ SUN Bucks program if the waiver was not submitted to the United States Department of Agriculture.
The SUN Bucks program provides a one-time benefit to help families feed their school-age children during the summer, yet the Legislature felt it appropriate to use children as political pawns. While I support the idea that Kansans should eat healthier, research suggests that unilaterally stripping these foods off the waiver is not the correct approach to achieve that intended result.
Throughout my time in office, I’ve strived to make Kansas a place where more families want to put down roots. Together, we’ve tackled obstacles that prevented Kansans from affording basic necessities. Perhaps most notably, in 2022, I championed a bipartisan effort to axe the state sales tax on food once and for all.
Earlier this year, the budget proposal I presented to the Legislature included funding that would eliminate co-payments for students on reduced-price school lunch, providing access to free meals to more than 35,000 Kansas students. Members of the Legislature gradually whittled down this funding until it became nonexistent. It was not included in the final budget they sent me.
What is to come of a country whose leaders, instead of feeding hungry people, feel empowered to take food off families’ tables? Ripping away meals from infants, older adults, people with disabilities and our most vulnerable shouldn’t be the norm to score political points. Those in positions of power should be making it easier, not harder, for our constituents to make ends meet. When we’ve worked together, we’ve achieved commonsense solutions that support hardworking families.
The middle of the road is not paved by government handouts for all with no guardrails, but neither is it by those who would take food out of the mouths of babies. There’s a middle ground that unites us, that reflects our Kansas values of both grit and compassion. We will be stronger as a state and as Kansans if we find this ground once again.
Laura Kelly is governor of Kansas.