Nate Starr: There's no such thing as a free lunch — unless you're Congressman Bill Huizenga

EDITOR'S NOTE: The views and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not of Ottawa News Network.

Congressman Bill Huizenga has a great deal to say about what Michigan families can afford. His campaign warns voters about the cost of electing Democrat Sean McCann. Apparently, lunch is easier to afford when somebody else picks up the check.

According to Melissa Nann Burke's Oct. 13 reporting in The Detroit News, Huizenga received $10,534 in taxpayer-funded meal reimbursements during 2025. That's more than the other six Michigan Republicans in the U.S. House received combined. Lisa McClain claimed $3,714. Jack Bergman claimed $368. The others claimed nothing for meals.

That's $10,534 for Huizenga versus $4,082 for his six Republican colleagues put together. They work under the same congressional rules and all need to eat. Yet Huizenga claimed more than two and a half times their combined amount.

Tim Walberg, for example, claimed zero. Somehow, he has apparently managed to shake enough change out of the couch cushions to buy himself a sandwich.

Before anyone suggests Huizenga was generously treating half of Washington to dinner, that's not what we're discussing. The particular reimbursement program at issue covers lawmakers' own eligible meals while they're in Washington on official business. It doesn't entitle anybody to buy the bar a round. The House Members' Congressional Handbook says claims cannot exceed actual expenses or the daily federal allowance. Members certify their claims.

But here's the remarkable part: They don't have to submit receipts. The handbook explicitly permits certification in place of them. Taxpayers get a total, not an itemized look at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Maybe Huizenga eats modestly. Maybe he's developed a taste for dodo egg omelets. The bird has been extinct for centuries, but we can't inspect a single menu item without receipts.

I used to work as an account executive at a radio station. I took clients to lunch to bring money into the company. My employer would reimburse the meal, provided I submitted a receipt. Alcohol was off limits.

I wasn't offended. That was company money, and the company had every right to know what it bought. Apparently, asking a member of Congress to meet the same standard is a bridge too far.

Which brings me to a question: What makes Congress so special?

This wouldn't be quite so rich if Huizenga weren't so eager to police public spending elsewhere. In a July 3, 2025, statement on his official congressional website, he praised the One Big Beautiful Bill for making progress toward eliminating, in his words, "waste, fraud, and abuse" from SNAP and Medicaid.

I'm not accusing Huizenga of fraud. I'm saying a five-figure annual reimbursement for one lawmaker's meals, alongside much smaller claims by people doing the same job, looks like waste to me. And a system that asks taxpayers to accept those expenses without receipts invites abuse of the public's trust.

To paraphrase Meat Loaf, "two out of three is still bad."

That July 2025 bill wasn't merely a talking point. Huizenga voted for it. The House Clerk's July 3, 2025, roll call, number 190, records his vote in favor. The law changed SNAP eligibility and work requirements. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services explains on its food assistance guidance page that expanded time-limited work requirements took effect in most Michigan counties in March 2026.

Yes, helping families afford groceries and reimbursing a congressman for his Washington lunches are different programs. Nobody needs them to be identical to notice that both involve taxpayer money and food. Yet one comes with a political sermon about discipline and responsibility, while the other allows elected officials to certify their own expenses without receipts.

Huizenga's campaign has been plenty interested in other people's budgets. In a June 15, 2026, statement titled "On Payday, Michigan Families Are Feeling the Cost of Tax Man McCann," campaign spokesman Calvin Moore declared that Southwest Michigan "can't afford Tax Man Sean McCann." The campaign also accused McCann of treating working families as his "personal ATM."

If affordability is the test, let's apply it consistently. He can explain why taxpayers reimbursed him more than $10,000 for his own meals.

This isn't Huizenga's first encounter with questions about spending accountability. In its June 5, 2024, report, In the Matter of Allegations Relating to Representative Bill Huizenga, the bipartisan House Ethics Committee found that his campaign's inadequate recordkeeping violated the House Code of Official Conduct. The committee did not find clear personal use of campaign funds and imposed no sanction. Different funds, different rules, but once again, the subject was how carefully spending was documented.

And Democrats don't get a free lunch from this column either. The same Detroit News report says Democrat Kristen McDonald Rivet claimed $8,786 for meals. I'd like to know what justified that amount, too. The reason Huizenga is the focus is simple: He has made fiscal restraint, government waste and his opponent's supposed unaffordability part of his public argument.

I don't begrudge anyone a meal. I question why people writing the spending rules face less scrutiny than those paying the bill.

If Congress wants public confidence, it can start with an uncomplicated reform: Keep the receipts. Show the expenses. Explain the differences. If six colleagues can claim far less for the same category of expense, the public deserves to know why.

Bill Huizenga says Southwest Michigan can't afford Sean McCann. Fine. Before we take his word on what families can afford, perhaps we can get a little more information about what we're buying him for lunch.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Unless, apparently, you serve in Congress.

— Nate Starr resides in Holland.

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