In 2022, Congressman Cline was one of just 42 members of the House to vote NO on the Keep Kids Fed Act. The law, which passed with support from all House Democrats and most Republicans, extended federal pandemic-era waivers that helped millions of kids access meals both in school and during the summer. 

Now the House Republican Study Committee, of which Cline is a leading member, has introduced a budget (see above photo) that would ban universal free school meals.

Eight states offer all students, regardless of household income, free school meals — and more states are trending in the direction. But while people across the country move to feed school children, congressional Republicans are looking to stop the cause.

The budget — co-signed by more than 170 House Republicans — calls to eliminate “the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) from the School Lunch Program.” The CEP, the Republicans note, “allows certain schools to provide free school lunches regardless of the individual eligibility of each student.” 

“Additionally,” the Republicans continue, “the RSC Budget would limit spending in the program to truly needy households.”

The CEP allows schools and districts in low-income areas to provide breakfast and lunch to all students, free of charge. The program thus relieves both schools and families from administrative paperwork, removing the inefficiencies and barriers of means-testing, all on the pathway to feeding more children and lifting all boats.

It’s ironic that Cline– who regularly rails against excessive government bureaucracy and regulations– wants to require families to prove they are “truly needy” before their kids can get free meals at school.

Republicans have worked for years to undermine school lunch programs, but the staying focus on the goal, even in rhetoric, is notable given the warm reception some states have received in instituting universal school lunch. In Minnesota, for example, 70 percent of Minnesotans, including 57 percent of conservatives and 54 percent of senior citizens, were found to have approved of the policy change that took effect last summer — even after reports that the program was proving to be more costly than anticipated, due to greater-than-expected demand. Statewide polling in Pennsylvania last year found 82 percent of people support expanding their free school breakfast program to include lunch too, while 87 percent of Ohio K-12 parents were found in 2022 to support school meals for all, regardless of ability to pay.

And of course, universal free school meals eliminate the hurtful divisions between children whose families’ can and can’t afford to pay.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the members of the Clarke County Democratic Committee (in Cline’s district), who– despite the Republican Study Committee– actually care about all school kids getting fed.

As wildfires raged in Shenandoah National Park and the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, threatening homes and businesses, Congressman Cline posted on Facebook:

Firefighters doing this physically demanding and dangerous work may appreciate the thanks. But they deserve more than that. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in 2021 by Congress and signed by President Biden, funded a substantial pay increase for wildland firefighters. The law also strengthens job protections for these firefighters and funds programs to help them deal with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health needs.

But Ben Cline joined the vast majority of his fellow House Republicans to vote NO. Of course he did.

In case anyone didn’t take him seriously last year, Congressman Cline has just reaffirmed his commitment to slashing Social Security and Medicare benefits for future retirees.

And, as you can see, he did it with a smile on his face.

Cline is a leading member of the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 170 House GOP lawmakers, which released these proposals and others on Wednesday. Cline chairs the RSC’s Budget and Spending Task Force.

NBC News reports:

For Social Security, the budget endorses “modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy.” It calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries….

The new budget also calls for converting Medicare to a “premium support model,” echoing a proposal that Republican former Speaker Paul Ryan had rallied support for. Under the new RSC plan, traditional Medicare would compete with private plans and beneficiaries would be given subsidies to shop for the policies of their choice. The size of the subsidies could be pegged to the “average premium” or “second lowest price” in a particular market, the budget says.

The plan became a flashpoint in the 2012 election, when Ryan was GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate, and President Barack Obama charged that it would “end Medicare as we know it.” Ryan defended it as a way to put Medicare on better financial footing, and most of his party stood by him.

Medicare is projected to become insolvent in 2028, and Social Security will follow in 2033. After that, benefits will be forcibly cut unless more revenues are added.

Biden has blasted Republican proposals for the retirement programs, promising that he will not cut benefits and instead proposing in his recent White House budget to cover the future shortfall by raising taxes on upper earners.

Of course Cline would never stand for that.

Boosting the age to claim Social Security benefits would increase hardship and poverty for older Americans, especially those working physically demanding low-income jobs. That would include a large portion of the people living in Cline’s Sixth Congressional District.

But the threats to Social Security and Medicare are not the only things wrong with this budget.

Apart from fiscal policy, the budget endorses a series of bills “designed to advance the cause of life,” including the Life at Conception Act, which would aggressively restrict abortion and potentially threaten in vitro fertilization, or IVF, by establishing legal protections for human beings at “the moment of fertilization.” It has recently caused consternation within the GOP following backlash to an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that threatened IVF.

The Life at Conception Act wouldn’t just “aggressively restrict” abortion and IVF. It would outlaw them entirely.

Further, according to a White House Fact Sheet, the RSC budget:

• “Raises Medicare costs for seniors by taking away Medicare’s authority to negotiate prescription drug costs, repealing $35 insulin, and the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap in the Inflation Reduction Act.”

• “Cuts Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by $4.5 trillion over ten years, taking coverage away from millions of people, eroding care for seniors, children, and people with disabilities, and taking us back to the days where people could be denied care for pre-existing conditions and charged more for health insurance simply for being a woman.”   

• “Passes $5.5 trillion in tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and large corporations, including permanently extending tax cuts in the Trump tax law, repealing the minimum tax on billion-dollar corporations the President signed into law, eliminating the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans, providing a massive tax cut for billionaire investors, and making it easier for the wealthy and large corporations to get away with cheating on their taxes.”

And it wouldn’t be a Republican plan without proposals for fighting pointless culture wars. So the RSC budget includes a long list of legislation aimed at curbing the teaching of “Critical Race Theory.” However that is defined.

I have no doubt Congressman Cline will be happy to explain and defend these proposals to any constituent who asks.

After President Biden concluded his State of the Union address to Congress Thursday night, Congressman Cline posted one of his awkward walk-and-talk videos denouncing the speech.

Standing in the Capitol Rotunda next to a statue of Ronald Reagan, Cline said: “Hey this is Ben Cline. I’m here after the State of the Union address.”

He went on to claim: “We didn’t hear much from this president tonight about solutions. We only saw him cast blame for the problems this country is facing.”

Those who watched the address or read the transcript can judge for themselves.

But a funny thing about Cline’s spiel: It was recorded before he or anyone else even heard Biden’s speech.

The speech started after 9 p.m. and ended before 11, when, as usual, it was dark outside in Washington, DC. But notice the daylight coming through the door at the rear as Cline talked.

Another reminder not to trust anything Cline says, on matters big or small.

As for Reagan, whom Cline called “one of our greatest presidents,” Biden made a telling point about him in his speech:

Wasn’t long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Now, now my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, do whatever the hell you want. That’s a quote. A former president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous, and it’s unacceptable.

Don’t you think so too, Congressman?

In fairness, Cline gave an interview after the address, as usual following the Republican talking points and ignoring what Biden actually said. Strangely, he called the speech “really disarming.” I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.

The Washington Post reports:

It is not surprising that Bartiromo would hype an anti-Biden conspiracy theory. Her recent career has been defined both by her sycophantic approach to former president Donald Trump and her elevation of even patently ridiculous assertions. In the wake of the 2020 election, for example, she seized on the idea that rampant fraud had occurred. A Fox executive even noted, in a message unearthed during the lawsuit filed by a company that makes voting machines, that Bartiromo had “GOP conspiracy theorists in her ear and they use her for their message sometimes.”

And no surprise: Congressman Cline has been a frequent subject of her unchallenging “interviews” about alleged Biden criminality and other topics. They usually amount to Bartiromo making dubious assertions and Cline readily agreeing.

Just last month she and Cline agreed that a former business associate of Hunter Biden offered “very damning testimony” about President Biden. (He didn’t.)

If you want to check out more of Cline’s dozens of appearances on Fox Business, many with Bartiromo, go here and type “Ben Cline” in the search box. It would be nice if Cline faced challenging questions from local media as often as he does softballs from the likes of Bartiromo.

It’s always interesting to find out what Congressman Cline has to say when he is talking exclusively to a group of fellow Republicans and doesn’t feel a need to disguise his hyper-partisan far-right views.

So a report in The Winchester Star about Cline’s recent appearance at a meeting of the Frederick County Republican Committee was revealing.

Cline warned that “the left is on the march.” If by “left” he means everyone who cringes at the thought of Donald Trump serving another term as President and everyone who believes in reproductive freedom, he may be right.

Holding the pocket Constitution on Tuesday night, he called it “the document I continue to wave at my (Democratic) counterparts on the other side of the aisle all the time when I’m emphasizing that if it’s not in the Constitution, we shouldn’t be doing it.” 

Huh? Does that include, for example, space exploration? The Constitution neither allows nor forbids that. But it’s not “in the Constitution.”

And when the Trump, whom Cline has endorsed for President in 2024, declared that he wanted to terminate the Constitution in order to be reinstated as President, the congressman was notably silent.

“There is a group, and it is across the country, an insidious movement of leftists who are pushing the exact opposite of what we are pushing — one nation. Well, first of all, when you have open borders, you don’t have a nation,” Cline said. 

“They are fighting to remove God from the public square,” Cline said. “… We’ve got to fight back against that to make sure we have a vibrant public square that recognizes the founding fathers and their intent on founding a country on Judaeo-Christian principles.”

The Constitution which Cline claims to revere does not mention God or “Judaeo-Christian principles”– not even once. The only mention of religion is in the First Amendment, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

When asked by an FCRC member if he believes Trump won the election in 2020, Cline responded, “I believe Donald J. Trump is going to win the election here in November alongside me and alongside other Republicans who are going to be in the majority, not just in the House but in the Senate as well.”

In other words, he didn’t answer the question.

He slammed the Senate border security bill that was negotiated by some Democrats and some Republicans, calling it a “Democrat bill in sheep’s clothing” negotiated in part by the “same Mitt Romney-Republicans that they always get.”

Never mind that Cline is openly trashing the 2012 Republican candidate for President. In fact the bill was negotiated by Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

In a speech shortly before the expected failure of the deal, Lankford bemoaned the fact that some fellow Republicans were objecting to the bill for purely political reasons.

“Some of them have been very clear with me,” Lankford said of his GOP colleagues, “they have political differences with the bill. They say it’s the wrong time to solve the problem. We’ll let the presidential election solve this problem.”

Lankford went on to say that a “popular commentator” — without naming any names — threatened to “destroy” him if he negotiated the deal during a presidential election year, regardless of what was in it.

“I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election,” Lankford recounted the commentator saying.

“By the way, they have been faithful to their promise, and have done everything they can to destroy me,” he added.

Did Cline also oppose the bill for strictly partisan political reasons too? Everything we know about him suggests he did.

In a separate conversation with a reporter, Cline was asked his position on Ukraine aid.

“I think that there is not a clear goal in terms of what victory looks like for Ukraine. The Biden administration refuses to give us that,” Cline said. “And so until there is a clear articulated goal for Ukraine and the money is followed, every dollar of taxpayer money, then we shouldn’t give any more.”

That drew a response from Rod Grandon, an Army veteran and a candidate for the Democratic nomination to run against Cline in the November 2024 election.

“If we don’t support Ukraine, we, the United States of America, will be weakened in the eyes of all, and in fact, it won’t just be a perception matter,” Grandon said. “Ronald Reagan would be flipping in his grave over Ben Cline and his colleagues’ approach.”

“It’s not a blank check. The vast majority of those funds go to American manufacturers who are producing the shells and the weapons that are then being transported over for use in Ukraine,” Grandon said. “We have the appropriate controls and processes for accounting for that money.” 

Did you know about Congressman Cline’s “telephone townhall” on Tuesday?

There was no mention of it on Cline’s congressional website, weekly newsletter, Facebook page or X account.

I phoned Cline’s Washington office on Wednesday morning to ask about it. The staff member who answered my call said participants were notified by phone a day or two beforehand. He took my contact information and promised I would be added to the list of those to be notified of future telephone townhalls for constituents in the central part of the Sixth District. He was unable to explain how the list was compiled. He promised to pass on to the Congressman my question about whether he will continue to hold in-person townhall meetings throughout the district.

So we will see. Meanwhile, if you want to be added to the list of those who supposedly will be contacted about future telephone townhalls, phone Cline’s office at (202) 225-5431.

Congressman Cline has yet to react publicly to the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling last week that that frozen embryos are people.

The court ruled that “unborn children are ‘children’ … without exception based on developmental stage, physical location, or any other ancillary characteristics.”

But Cline must agree with the court’s decision because he is one of 124 House Republicans co-sponsoring HR 431: “To implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.”

According to the bill:

The terms “human person” and “human being” include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.

Obviously the “preborn” include even the newest embryos, which are the result of fertilization, and which may consist of only a few dozen cells. And not every frozen embryo is successfully implanted. The bill Cline supports nonetheless would define each such embryo as a human child. Would the now-routine disposal of these embryos comprise murder?

As a result of the ruling, medical facilities in Alabama have put in-vitro fertilization procedures on hold. Ironically this will mean fewer births.

Of course HR 431 would not only apply to frozen embryos. It would be a nationwide ban on abortion from the moment of conception for any reason, including rape, incest or protecting the health or life of the mother– applying to 10-year-old girls as much as anyone else.

If Cline thinks I am misinterpreting the language of the bill, I hope he will provide his own interpretation.

Rather than working on the everyday needs of his constituents– for good-paying jobs, quality health care, affordable housing and secure retirements– Congressman Cline has devoted an awful lot of his time and effort over the past year to a partisan effort to uncover corrupt connections between President Biden and his family.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Cline has been a loyal accomplice of chairman Jim Jordan in his attempt to find Biden-related criminality.

In June 2023 Cline identified Gal Luft, who claimed to have evidence against the Bidens, as a “brave whistleblower.” A month later Luft was indicted for acting as an unregistered agent for Chinese companies and for brokering arms deals between those companies, Iran and countries in the Middle East.

And that, apparently, was the last time Cline ever mentioned the “brave whistleblower” Luft.

This month, in a typically unchallenging interview by Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business, Cline claimed that Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, gave the House Oversight and Accountability Committee “very damning testimony” against the Bidens. He left no doubt that he thinks President Biden should be impeached for bribery.

But CNN reported:

Over the past several years, Tony Bobulinski has seemingly shared his story with anyone who would listen, including the Trump campaign. But his loftiest claims — that Joe Biden was deeply involved in his son’s overseas business deals — are still uncorroborated and have been undercut by other key witnesses.

And ABC News reported:

The transcript of Bobulinski’s appearance appears to show that when pressed, Bobulinski — who [Oversight Committee Chairman James] Comer has described as “the one honest, credible guy that was involved with the Bidens” — could not point to direct evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his family’s business dealings.

And now yet another supposedly key witness against the Bidens– Alexander Smirnov– has been charged with lying about the family’s business dealing in Ukraine. Not only that, Smirnov told investigators that Russian intelligence officials provided him with misinformation about Hunter Biden.

Prosecutors also said Alexander Smirnov has been “actively peddling new lies that could impact US elections” after meeting with Russian spies late last year and that the fallout from his previous false bribery accusations about the Bidens “continue[s] to be felt to this day.”

So what now, Congressman Cline? It would be nice to think that you and your Republican colleagues will end your fruitless crusade to find evidence of corruption against the President.

But I’m afraid we know better by now.

As we await Congressman Cline’s expression of outrage about the apparent murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison camp (you are outraged, aren’t you, Congressman?), let’s look at Cline’s latest excuses for opposing further US aid to Ukraine as it fights to beat back murderous Russian aggression.

On February 13 the Senate voted 70 to 29 to provide $60 billion for military and economic aid to Ukraine and $14 billion for military aid to Israel, as well as humanitarian aid for Gaza and the West Bank and $4.8 billion to deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. The funding is stalled in the House of Representatives.

Here is Cline on one of his favorite rightwing news sites, where he can be assured of unchallenging questions, denouncing the legislation.

“This bill…includes money for Ukraine following on the more than $100 billion that American taxpayers have already sent to Ukraine, when we have zero accountability for the dollars that have already been spent.”

Wrong. US aid to Ukraine totals closer to $75 billion, “which includes humanitarian, financial, and military support.” About 90 percent of that money is being spent in the USA for weapons, ammunition and supplies produced in American factories by thousands of American workers. And as the Institute for the Study of War reports, “US oversight is extensive, and Ukrainian government oversight and accountability is extensive and growing… Ukrainian and [Department of Defense] personnel have been working aggressively to continue to improve monitoring and tracking of US aid, and US DoD officials have stated that there is no evidence that US-provided military assistance to Ukraine has been misappropriated.”

“We have an administration that doesn’t know what success is, can’t define success in Ukraine, and wants to send more taxpayer dollars into this black hole of a proxy war.”

Congressman Cline: What sort of definition of “success” are you looking for? How about: Helping Ukraine resist, and ultimately defeat, Russian aggression. Does that work for you?

And what do you mean by a “proxy war”? Are you saying that the US is using Ukraine as a proxy in a war against Russia? Reminder: It was Russia that invaded Ukraine. Ukraine is fighting for its survival as a free and independent nation with the assistance of the US and many other countries. Without additional aid, Russia could crush Ukraine. Can you grasp that?

“And then you have aid to Israel, our dependable ally in the Middle East… We are willing to help our democratic ally Israel because of the historic cultural, national security and economic ties that bind us. But we can’t tie it to Ukrainian aid…”

Congressman Cline: Can’t you understand that Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression and Israel’s war against Hamas are tied together? Israelis like Amir Tibon understand it.

Shame on you too, Congressman Cline.