Sue Dinsdale is the Executive Director of Iowa Citizen Action Network and the State Lead for Health Care for America NOW.

This Mother’s Day, Senator Joni Ernst and her Republican colleagues are playing a sleight of hand when it comes to supporting families and children. Their rhetoric might sound like a corny greeting card, but their actions tell an ugly truth about their real intentions. Their agenda shifts resources away from the moms and kids who need them to advance a plan that further enriches the wealthy and corporations.

As a mother and a grandmother, it’s really hard to take when Vice President JD Vance wants Americans to have more children, and Ernst gives lip service to the importance of supporting growing families. Especially while virtually every action the GOP has taken since being in the majority makes parenthood harder by raising costs, cutting jobs and taking away health care.

Rather than address inflation and affordability, the Republican’s signature legislative achievement so far, the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” cut trillions of dollars from basic needs programs to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest households and huge corporate tax loopholes for companies that boost profits by price-gouging.

Last year, over 85 large corporations paid zero in income taxes. Meanwhile, Republicans refused to renew tax credits that make health insurance in the state marketplaces more affordable, forcing millions, including 96,000 Iowans, to pay double or even triple for their coverage and forcing millions more to forgo coverage all together. 

Some 670,000 Iowans who get health coverage from Medicaid and the 259,000 who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are at risk of losing this assistance at around $6.20 per day that helps them meet basic needs.

And we can’t forget that U.S. House Republicans voted in April for a farm bill that would slash funding for the Women, Infants and Children program that helps new moms and young kids under five get adequate nutrition. Those cuts could affect some 48,000 Iowans.

None of the Republican legislation so far has done anything to lower the cost of food, rent, utilities, and out of pocket health care expenses. Instead, their policies are leaving moms less equipped to respond to the affordability crisis. 

This is my first Mother’s Day without my mom. The values she instilled in me don’t include helping the rich get richer by taking food and health care away from working families, kids, and seniors. So it adds insult to injury when I hear politicians carry on about families excitedly saving up for baby strollers and toys, while the policies they voted for put these things out of reach for many families.

Maybe they believe voters will buy into fairy tales of bygone days when moms stayed home and one-income households were the norm, and won’t notice that President Donald Trump and the GOP have broken every promise about making life more affordable for average Americans. Or maybe voters won’t notice that the Republicans aren’t doing anything to make child care, paid family leave, or college affordable or accessible.

Maybe the public will forget that the cost of literally everything—from groceries to the price of utilities, gas, and health insurance premiums—is soaring on the Republicans’ watch. Increasing numbers of people can’t afford to raise the children they already have, much less add more. 

Republicans’ mishandling of the economy isn’t the only impediment to having more kids. The political instability that has made school shootings, gun violence, and unregulated social media new norms in American childhood may give potential parents pause. Not only is it more expensive than ever to raise children it’s also harder than ever to protect kids from danger. Yet our current leaders resist any efforts to moderate social media, regulate weapons, or invest in addressing root causes of violence like poverty or mental illness.

When it comes to moms and kids, what matters is not what politicians say but what they do. 

Republicans who won’t fund food for millions of toddlers and their parents don’t care about families and don’t value motherhood. 

So this Mother’s Day, I believe the best way to honor my mom’s memory—and all moms—is to fight back against the hypocrisy that is making it harder for them to raise their families and flourish.