North Dakota Senate votes to expand free meals for its members, not children

The North Dakota Senate passed a bill to give its members more free food, after scrapping a proposal to increase free lunches for hungry school-age children.

On Thursday, the GOP-led chamber voted 26-21 to allow state employees to collect up to $45 a day to pay for meals while traveling within North Dakota, up from $35 currently. He billthat would cost $1 million in taxpayer money over the next two years now heads to Gov. Doug Burgum’s (R) desk to become law.

But less than two weeks ago, the Senate rejected a separate bill that would have allocated $6 million over the next two years to provide free school lunches to all K-12 students living at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. This would expand a federal program that already provides meals to students living below 130% of the poverty level.

The bill failed by a single vote.

In particular, 13 republicans voted against the school meals proposal and also supported reimbursement for state employees. No democrats he did the same.

“I thought the vote today was very selfish,” Senate Minority Leader Kathy Hogan (D) said Thursday. according to the regional media The Forum. “How can we vote for ourselves when we can’t vote for the children?”

One of the 13 Republican lawmakers, aide to Republican Majority Leader Jerry Klein, said he could see “no correlation” between the two bills, The Forum reported.

“Yes, I can understand kids going hungry, but is that really the school district’s problem? Is that the problem of the state of North Dakota? Wobbema asked.

“It’s really the problem of parents who are neglectful of their children, if their children choose to eat in the first place.”