WaPo | Perhaps the most upsetting headline I saw, though, was generated not
by Trump but by a 10-year veteran of the House Republican majority. In
an astonishing interview Saturday on NPR, this lawmaker repeatedly
demurred when asked whether Americans are entitled to the most basic
human need.
NPR’s Scott Simon, a genial interviewer, asked Rep.
Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), a member of the Ways and Means Committee and an
influential figure on agriculture policy, about Trump’s proposal to make
vast cuts to food stamps. Smith posited that the program could be cut
in ways that “do not harm the most vulnerable.”
“Well, let me ask you this bluntly: Is every American entitled to eat?” Simon queried.
Smith was stumped. “Well, they — nutrition, obviously, we know is very important. And I would hope that we can look to — ”
Simon interrupted: “Well, not just important, it’s essential for life. Is every American entitled to eat?”
Smith agreed that nutrition “is essential” but continued to ignore the question about whether Americans are entitled to eat.
Simon
tried a third time: “So is every American entitled to eat, and is food
stamps something that ought to be that ultimate guarantor?”
Once
again, the lawmaker demurred: “I think that we know that, given the
necessity of nutrition, there could be a number of ways that we could
address that.”
There was more, but it all came down to this: In
the United States, in 2017, a powerful member of Congress refuses to
grant that Americans should be able to count on eating food.
