Hungry need help, empathy

I just watched another report on hunger in America on the PBS Newshour. It was scary.

SNAP (supplemental nutritional assistance program), of course, has been cut. To many, this isn’t consequential. To some, it’s a matter of hunger. Can we make a “great society?” Not likely. Can we be compassionate? Not if republicans or the evangelical right have their way.

Conservative commentator David Brooks talked a while back about how he was leaning toward thinking SNAP spending was spiraling out of control until he looked at the statistics. Then he came to believe virtually all recipients were in very serious need and reductions in the program would hurt the most vulnerable.

Republican congressmen, in general, know this. They know food banks are emptying. They’re just short on empathy. They are building on a traditional of it.

Rick Walker

Snohomish