Just a week into his second term as president, Donald Trump's administration tried to
snatch away trillions of federal dollars from their rightful recipients.
Money for healthcare, medical research, housing, child care, food for the hungry, and even disaster relief efforts -- Trump's Office of Management and Budget tried to stop it all from getting to those who needed it.
In an interview on CNN, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia had the audacity to not only
defend the cruel freeze on federal aid, but to also suggest the most morbid idea for the children who would go hungry because of it."You're telling me that kids who stay at home instead of going to work at Burger King, McDonald's, during the summer, should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work? I think we need to have a top-down review."
Sign the petition and tell McCormick and the Trump administration: stop trying to steal food from hungry kids or forcing them to work!Cutting off funding to the countless programs and people that need it is not only clearly evil --
it is illegal. And so, two federal judges have already blocked Trump's monstrous federal aid freeze, one of them pointing out that the Trump administration has "no legal authority" to withhold this money.
Thankfully, for now, this means the federal aid freeze cannot continue.
However, the chaos it caused when it was first announced has had dangerous effects. As of Wednesday, February 5th, dozens of Head Start programs -- which provide support for low-income children including nutritional assistance -- have still been "unable to access previously approved federal funding."
You read that right -- programs that exist solely to help struggling children are at risk of
shutting down because of the Trump administration's callous, illegal actions!
Head Start serves roughly
750,000 children a year, all of them 5 years old or younger. McCormick's understanding of how this federal funding is used is obviously grossly misinformed,
unless he is suggesting we force 3-year-olds into McDonalds' kitchens.Of course,
even when we are talking about older children, McCormick's idea to force them to work is neither backed by compassion nor science. We know from research that
hungry kids do worse in school; they struggle to pay attention, retain information, and solve problems. Why, then, would we assume they would be happy and successful if, on top of all of that, they had to start working an adult job?
Children should be able to focus on their childhood, not on making enough money so that they don't starve. They should be free to do their homework, focus on hobbies that could one day inform their careers, and spend valuable time with their families and friends. They should be joining sports teams, playing outside, learning an instrument,
not working in a fast food restaurant.While the federal aid freeze has been blocked, we cannot let up the pressure even for a moment. Trump and his followers like McCormick will continue to try to test their limits of power,
but this block proves that when we fight back, we win.Sign the petition for all of the hungry children who need our support under this administration, and tell Trump and his supporters to stay away from their funding!