Hangry Much? Minnesota State Senator Doesn’t Think School Children Deserve Free Meals
Minnesota Republican state Senator Steve Drazkowski should probably have more than a cereal bar for breakfast. Drazkowski on Tuesday voted against a House bill that would provide free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren – because he has never met a hungry person in his state.
“Mr. President, I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that is hungry,” the state senator claimed. “Yet today. I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat.”
The very limited assumption also led to him questioning the lack of a definition of “hunger” in the bill.
“Now I should say that hunger is a relative term, Mr. President,” Drazkowski rambled. “You know, I had a cereal bar for breakfast, I guess I’m ‘hungry’ now. That to some, maybe that’s the definition of the bill, I don’t know. I didn’t see a definition of hunger in the bill, Mr. President. But I think most reasonable people suggest hunger means you don’t have enough to eat in order to provide for metabolism and growth.”
The bill, called House File 5, was passed in the Minnesota senate on the same day and is expected to pass the state’s legislative branch and be signed by Governor Tim Walz of the Democratic–Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party. The passage of this legislation would add Minnesota to the short list of states, including California, Colorado and Maine, that provides free meals to all students.
Unlike the bill’s 35 authors, Drazkowski does not seem to be a big fan of providing support to children in his state. Earlier in March, he argued against a 51% increase in early childhood spending and instead asked to abolish early childhood education.
“We should let parents raise their kids until they’re 5 at least before government comes with a school bus, backs it up to the maternity ward room door, and takes them to the government school,” he said.
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