GOP Lawmaker Says Hungry People Don't Exist Because He's Never Met One

[Jilly_in_VA]

As the Minnesota state senate debated a bill meant to provide more free school meals to kids living in poverty, one Republican senator’s rationale for voting against it was simple: those kids don’t exist.

While many of his GOP colleagues argued against the cost of Senate Bill 12—$200 million annually—State Sen. Steve Drazkowski cast doubt on the idea that hungry families exist in his state at all.

“I have yet to meet a person in Minnesota that says they don’t have access to enough food to eat,” State Sen. Steve Drazkowski said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “We need to make sure, if we’re going to develop more food welfare programs, and force them on the kids and families in the state of Minnesota, we got to make sure that they’re not at least riddled with the type of fraud that basically is stealing from the people of Minnesota.”

Drazkowski, who served the state House for 13 years prior to being elected to the Senate in 2022, called the measure “pure socialism” and part of the state’s attempt to control what kids eat. He mocked the idea of hungry kids, adding that the term “hunger” is relative.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7ze4e/steve-drazkowski-minnesota-hungry-kids

[Biophilic]

1. It's amazing to me just how blind people can be if they give themselves half a chance.

This guys lying or he is truly blind, deaf and stupid.

[bluesbassman]

4. Both can be true.

And in the case of GOP pols, it usually is.

[republianmushroom]

5. I'll go with the stupid.

[Walleye]

2. I've never met anyone who takes fentanyl either so I don't see what the big deal is about that

[RockRaven]

3. I readily believe he has never met a hungry person. That says nothing about the existence of hunger

and everything about how insular his life is.

[Kid Berwyn]

6. That's what Ed Meese says, too.

[Midnight Writer]

7. Why should he burden his beautiful mind thinking about hungry people?

[kimbutgar]

8. As a substitute teacher I see children all the time who's only hot meal is that free lunch at school

And this is in a wealthy city San Francisco. One kid told me once that he has cereal for dinner every night and another said he eats a can of spaghetti for dinner every night that his Mom gets at the food bank.

I suspect there are a lot of hungry children in Minnesota he has no clue about. Why are repukes so heartless?

[Marcus IM]

9. Force food programs on people?

Like the Cuban gov't forced rent controls, subsidized energy, subsidized food, universal healthcare and universal ed on Cubans. Uh huh.

[Ray Bruns]

10. Typical republican. It's not a problem if it's not affecting them personally.

[vanlassie]

11. Wanna bet he's never felt hunger, either?

[Jilly_in_VA]

12. Wanna bet he's overweight himself

if not obese?