Whenever government food assistance programs enter the news cycle, the conversation tends to focus on whether recipients are deserving. For example, Republican members of Congress have accused SNAP recipients of not having jobs and wrongly claimed the program benefits undocumented immigrants. Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins said on X that any SNAP recipients who didn’t “have at least 1 month of groceries stocked” in advance should be ineligible to continue receiving benefits and “stop smoking crack.”
It’s ugly sentiments like this that underlie the Trump administration’s cruel use of hunger as leverage to pressure Democratic senators into signing the Republicans’ continuing resolution, all while Trump himself drags its feet on a court order to make full SNAP payments despite the shutdown. Meanwhile, food pantries are being stretched beyond capacity, with families, children and the elderly going hungry just weeks before Thanksgiving. Given this, the question of whether or not these people are truly deserving is not just political negligence. It is deeply immoral.
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