Copyright AL.com
This is an opinion column. There’s hungry, then there’s hungry. There’s I don’t know what I want to eat, then there’s I don’t have enough (or anything) to eat. There’s food prices sure are going up, then there’s I can’t afford to feed my family. Hunger is a travesty. No one anywhere, but especially in this richest of nations, should go without enough food. No child should go to bed, wake up or go to school hungry. Then there’s reality. People are hungry. Working people are hungry. Our elderly are hungry. Our vets are hungry. Too many of our children are hungry. Our neighbors are hungry. They were hungry before Donald Trump lied. Before he claimed the Department of Agriculture could not tap its $5.5 billion of contingency fund to feed the hungry, to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — yeah, SNAP — after Nov. 1 because Congress has not reached a consensus on the national budget. If our government leaders at all levels do nothing else, they should ensure no one among their constituents is hungry. What they should not do is weaponize hunger in a political food fight. Or ignore it. There are leaders, then there’s the president and his Republican sheep in Congress. On Friday, two federal judges called them on the lie and said they must use the federal government’s contingency — let’s call it a hungry, not rainy day — fund to at least partially pay for SNAP benefits during the month of November. The federal government may be closed, but hunger does not have a day off. There are leaders who step into a crisis, then there’s Gov. Kay Ivey. Thus far, not a peep from her as almost 780,000 Alabamians receiving federal-funded food benefits stared down the barrel of a shutdown in which they were the bullseye. Not a peep after Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said he’d ask the City Council to approve a request to use $1 million to ensure residents who may be hit by the loss or diminished SNAP benefits in November do not go hungry. Not a peep as Hoover residents responded “far beyond the norm” to the public library’s social media call for donations to its food pantry for neighbors who might be affected by the showdown-shutdown. “Donations now fill three rooms,” the city said in a release Friday evening. “The Hoover community stands ready to help those in need.” Not a peep yet in response to a letter sent to the governor Friday from the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus requesting the governor call a special session of the state legislature to “authorize emergency measures that will sustain SNAP benefits during the shutdown.” “On Monday at 10:30 a.m., we’ll be at the state house ready to go to work,” Caucus Chair Rep. Napoleon Bracy, D-Pritchard, told me. “If she wants to call us into session, we’ll be there waiting.” Here, SNAP is distributed through the Alabama Department of Human Resources. “We have funds set aside for emergencies,” added Bracy, “for what we would call a rainy day. I would consider this to be a rainy day. This is not a permanent fix, but we believe we should step up to the plate and try to fill this gap.” Caucus Co-chair Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove said, “When political gridlock in Washington threatens to take food off Alabama families’ tables, we must step up at home. This is not about politics! It’s about people and about doing what’s right for the most vulnerable among us.” There’s a multitude of the vulnerable among us, of course, and vulnerable businesses. AL.com’s Savannah Tryens-Fernandes revealed the potential trickle-outward effect snapping SNAP grocery stores. SNAP and WIC, another food subsidy program, support more than 7,800 jobs and $350 million in grocery employee wages, says the Alabama Grocers Association. “They not only prevent hunger but also sustain jobs and economic activity throughout our state,” the group’s leader said. I have no faith that Ivey or Alabama’s Republican leaders will stunt their fealty to Trump and move to feed the vulnerable in our state. Sen. Tommy Tuberville doesn’t think any of his supporters are hungry. As for the rest of the hungry in the state he wants to lead, he thinks they should get a job. He thinks the state has “probably way too many” SNAP recipients. “It’s hard to distinguish between the good and the people that don’t need it,” he said in yet another podcast appearance. Days before the federal judges ruled, Sen. Katie Britt said she was supporting a GOP bill to fund SNAP during the shutdown. But she soon lapsed into the party’s lame blame blabber by putting the closure on Democrats. “They couldn’t care less about hardworking Americans,” she said. Yeah, okay. She even blamed the shutdown on us, the media. She’s supposed to be the good one, right? Should Ivey and the legislature move to ensure Alabamians will eat — whether on SNAP or otherwise (federal workers are not being paid during the stoppage), we would not be, heaven forbid, a leader among states in doing so. As of Friday, nine states have chosen to support residents potentially impacted by any decrease in SNAP benefits, including one among our Southern brethren. On Friday, following a unanimous House vote and 32-1 Senate vote, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the state would utilize $150 million in state money to create a temporary fund to feed residents. “We’re going to lead the nation in the way we take care of people,” Landry said. Yeah, there’s them that lead, then there’s Alabama.
