Cynthia L Davis, Missouri princess

Cynthia Davis made Countdown's worst person in the world yesterday. She earned that by her remarks. Perhaps some of the voters need to contact this "princess". Even Marie-Antoinette had better sense than this. Below are bio, Countdown snip and Post Dispatch article. Most is copyrighted material and I shall withdraw if objections made.
------------- from her Wikipedia bio: Cynthia L. Davis (born November 23, 1959) is a Republican currently serving in the Missouri House of Representatives. She lives in O'Fallon, Missouri, and is married to Bernie Davis, with whom she has seven children: John, Benjamin, Cathryn, Matthew, Amanda, Susanna, and Philip.

She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and graduated from Needham High School in Needham, Massachusetts. She majored in music at Nyack College of Nyack, New York before marrying Bernie in 1980. After moving to Missouri Christmas Eve of 1984, she with her husband opened the Back to Basics Christian Bookstore in O'Fallon in 1989. In 1992 she was appointed to chair the legislative committee for the O'Fallon Business Association. She was first elected to the O'Fallon Board of Aldermen in 1994, served as its president in 1995, and was thereafter elected to five consecutive terms.

She was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Davis suggested in one of her district newsletters that she opposed summer feeding programs for poor children because child hunger could be a "positive motivator."[1] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch blasted her in an editorial, saying that she didn't know the needs of the state's children.[2] Other elected offices: Republican Committeewoman for Dardenne Township Secretary of Women Legislators of Missouri Vice-President of the First Capitol Federation of Republican Women She currently serves on the following committees: Vice-Chair Family Services Committee, Vice-Chair Healthcare Policy Committee, and the Elections Committee

---------------------------- Post Dispatch article: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials/2009/06/oblivious-to-the-needs-of-missouris-hungry-children/

06.15.2009 9:00 pm Oblivious to the needs of Missouri’s hungry children
By: Editorial Board 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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Article printed from The Platform: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform URL to article: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials

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