Oblivious to the needs of Missouri’s hungry children
State Rep. Cynthia Davis offers a tip to hungry families.
State Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, is staking out a strong position on child hunger: She’s for it.
“Hunger can be a positive motivator,” she notes in the latest edition of her newsletter.
More precisely, Ms. Davis is against summer feeding programs for poor kids. They are an excuse “to create an expansion of a government program,” she says.
Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families. In that position, she might be expected to have insight into child hunger in our state.
She might know, for instance, that about one in five Missouri children lives with hunger. That ties us with Louisiana for the nation’s seventh-highest rate, according to a report released last month by the hunger-relief charity Feeding America.
Or that the recession has pushed the number of poor Missouri kids who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches by 8.3 percent this year, well above the national average.
Apparently not.
”While I have not seen this as a problem in my district, it is entirely possible that the (summer feeding) program is designed to address problems that exist in other parts of Missouri,” Ms. Davis says in her newsletter.
“The right way to solve this is with more education. If parents … don’t know how to serve nutritious meals, let’s help them learn to do that.”
In that spirit, she offers some helpful hints:
• “Families may economize by choosing not to waste hard earned dollars on potato chips, ice cream or Twinkies.”
• “Laid-off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.”
• “Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.”
About 100,000 more people are unemployed in Missouri today than were jobless in 2007. Food pantries across the state are struggling to meet increased demand. The United Way of St. Louis and more than 100 area companies are participating in a food drive this week.
And the plain, tragic fact is some children have parents who aren’t particularly interested in caring for them. Ward Cleaver and Cliff Huxtable are off the television airways.
But Ms. Davis is skeptical about the need to feed poor children during the summer when schools are closed.
If — if — there really is one, she says, “churches and non-profits can do this at no cost to the taxpayer.”
Or maybe not.
“Most of our 18 (summer feeding program) sites are churches,” explains Rosemary Terranova, who oversees the program for St. Louis County.
“We’re trying to support churches that want to offer some kind of summer recreation program for kids,” she says. “They supply the staff, we supply the food.”
The program “has been a real blessing to us,” says Caroline Crenshaw of Bethesda Temple in Normandy, where 40 children attended day care last week while their parents worked.
The summer feeding program’s cost is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which pays about $1.81 for each breakfast served and $3.18 for each lunch.
Last year, 3.7 million meals were served by the summer feeding program at a total cost of less than $9.5 million. That’s a pretty good use of federal money.
In the same generous spirit as Ms. Davis, we’d like to offer a suggestion.
• Tip: When you chair a state special committee on children and families, you probably ought to learn something about the needs of children and families.
It’s too late to defeat Cynthia Davis, this is her last term, a perfect example of when term limits are a good thing.
But she’s pushing for her husband Bernie, who is as heartless and daft as she is, to take her place in the house.
Did you see that Olbermann named her the World’s Worst Person this evening?
I suppose that all of those who agree with Ms. Davis from O’fallon have had the personal good fortune to watch their own children starve, or have had the great advantage of experiencing starvation as children themselves. It’s a wonderful ‘motivating’ experience.
Death is a great motivator, too. Maybe it would be a good idea to withhold medical care from sick and injured children…ALL sick and injured children, not just those of the poor. If enough of them die on a regular basis there will be so much more ‘motivation’.
After all, that motivation factor is all-important. We need more children who’ve suffered brain damage as a result of hunger or are somehow physically disabled so that they’ll be ‘motivated’ to perform the menial tasks that OUR children shouldn’t have to perform when they grow up. (If by ‘our’ we mean those of us who can afford to delude ourselves into believing that we’re much more important than poor people who are obviously defective subhumans…you know, the very comfortably delusional ivory tower elites, like Ms. Davis.)
Suzy-
Yes, Cynthia Davis did make the national news by being Keith Olbermann’s worst person in the world on Countdown tonight. I looked up the complete newsletter on Ms. Davis’ website, and it was every bit as horrible as I thought it would be. Every bit of Ms. Davis’ commentary is just that–commentary. It is her opinion, and there is nothing resembling statistics! I shudder to think that District 19 might elect Ms. Davis’ husband to her post.
I wish I could say that I moved from the St. Louis area to Las Vegas to find a better class of politics. Unfortunately, we have our own idiots in the form of Governor Gibbons and Senator Ensign; both of them, like Ms. Davis, have made the national news for their narrow-minded, act first and think never ways. (did I also mention that all of the above are Republicans?)
Missouri should be so proud…one of their own made it to the big time…Worst person in the world on Countdown.
One poster mentioned that Ms. Davis is term limited…while that might be a good thing that she will be kicked out it also serves a a reminder that term limits can cull the gene pool of elected officials…she apparently hasn’t bothered to learn anything about her job and will be replaced by someone else who knows nothing…sometimes, experience and job knowledge can be a good thing.
Here is the link to the full newsletter from Rep. Davis’ website…
http://cynthiadavis.net/PDFs/cpr090604_Summer_Food_Program.htm
Not only was it the most intellectually ignorant and socially disheartening thing I’ve ever read…. I think it gave me cancer…
-Sad Saint Charles Resident (thankfully not in her district)
So “Ms. Davis chairs the House Special Standing Committee on Children and Families”, but she’s only aware of those in HER District? What’s up with that?
More heartless Republicanism. Great, just great. Just what our country needs.
Ms. Davis, I know your theme song.
TNUC by Grandfunk Railroad. Figure it out.
Representative Cynthia “Whack-Job” Davis is what happens when people vote their religious beliefs instead of common sense.
I am a resident of the 19th district (the Fightin’ 19th!), and Mrs. Davis has been an embarrassment — to those of us that use our brains — for YEARS. From anti-abortion terroristic bills to objecting to a colleague not rising to speak on the floor of the House because he was in a WHEELCHAIR, Cynthia Davis is as “Clueless” as Cher Horowitz in the movie of the same name.
Still the Bible-thumping, right-wing, rabid sheep of Saint Charles county continue to return this mental midget to the halls of Jefferson City with alarming margins of victory. Why? Because she is against everything they are against and she is for everything they are for.
How is it possible that otherwise decent people can support this crazy lady? Even more incomprehensible is that Representative Whack-Job is:
Chairwoman of the Special Committee on Children and Families
Chairwoman of the Interim Committee on Poverty
Member of the Health Care Policy Committee
Member of the Elections Committee
Member of the Special Committee on State Parks and Waterways
How does a person with no working knowledge of ANY of these issues end up not only as a member, but chairing these committees?
From her stint on O’Fallon’s Planning and Zoning Commission, to her tour of duty in Jefferson City, Cynthia Davis has demonstrated that she has absolutely no business in public service. She should, instead, return to running her Christian bookstore and making sure that there are no pornographic videos in the back rooms of convenience stores.
A rotting turnip could do a better job in the State House.
Just take a look at this woman. Clearly she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Shame on the people who would elect a dimwit like this to represent them in any way, shape or form.
I’d also be willing to wager that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of them agree with her. It was Rush who stated that people who exercise and take care of themselves are part of the reason why our healthcare costs are so high.
What a princess. Even Marie Antonette had a better answer.