Opinion: Only cruelty can explain why Abbott vetoed food aid for Texas children
In a stunning act that defies both logic and decency, Governor Greg Abbott line-item vetoed $450 million in federal funds earmarked for feeding hungry children in Texas this summer. There is no fiscal justification, no bureaucratic barrier, no rational reason. The only explanation left is cruelty.
The Summer EBT program, known as SUN Bucks, was created under the Biden administration in 2022 as a way to tackle a predictable and tragic problem: when school is out for the summer, millions of low-income children lose access to free or reduced-price school meals. In a state like Texas—where child poverty and food insecurity are both rampant—this program isn’t just a lifeline, it’s a necessity.
SUN Bucks provides families $120 per eligible child to help with food over the summer months. The federal government covers all of those benefits. States only split the administrative costs—about $60 million over two years in Texas’s case—in exchange for $450 million in food benefits directly into the hands of struggling families.
That’s not just good policy. That’s good economics. The benefits don’t sit in bank accounts or get lost in paperwork—they go straight into grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and small businesses across Texas. Nearly 3.8 million children would have qualified. That’s millions of lunchboxes filled, millions of dinners not skipped, and millions of working parents given one less impossible decision to make.
Abbott’s stated reason? He cited “significant uncertainty regarding federal matching rates” and claimed the state needed more clarity about long-term costs. That’s dishonest. The funding structure is well-documented. Every other participating state, red and blue, has figured this out. This isn’t about fiscal caution—it’s about ideological callousness.
There was no public outcry against the program. No financial emergency that required cutting it. No moral defense to deprive hungry kids of food during the hottest and most difficult months of the year. Just a veto, quietly signed, that denied $450 million in federal aid—over food, for children.
This decision will not harm political donors. It won’t dent Texas’s billion-dollar budget surplus. But it will absolutely harm children—millions of them. It will deepen summer hunger. It will stretch the backs of already-struggling parents. It will rip food away from those who need it most.
When you look at a policy that saves lives, costs little, has bipartisan support, and yet is still blocked by one man with a pen, you’re left with only one conclusion.
Cruelty is the point.
