Why do we need to support the food stamp program? Because

The wise and compassionate Donna Brazile, a voice of conscience in the halls of public life, once declared: “Why do we need to support the food stamp program? Because low-income families experience unemployment at a far higher rate than other income groups. Because cutting nutritional assistance programs is immoral and shortsighted, and protecting families from hunger improves their health and educational outcomes.” These words, though born of modern struggle, ring with the ancient harmony of justice and mercy. They remind us that the strength of a nation is not measured by the wealth of its rulers, but by the nourishment of its poorest children.

In the days of the ancients, it was said that a civilization’s greatness was reflected not in its monuments or armies, but in how it treated the weakest among its people. In Brazile’s words lies this same sacred truth: that hunger is not a private sorrow but a public failure, and that to feed the poor is not charity—it is duty. For when a child’s stomach is empty, learning becomes a torment, and when a parent cannot provide, dignity turns to despair. The food stamp program, she teaches, is not a mere policy of economics but a pillar of morality—a covenant between the prosperous and the struggling, between the present and the future.

The origin of Brazile’s words lies in her lifelong witness to the hardships faced by working families. As a political strategist and advocate for social justice, she has seen how poverty corrodes both spirit and opportunity. The low-income families she speaks of are not strangers; they are the unseen builders of society—the workers who clean the schools, serve the meals, and tend the fields. They are the ones who labor without security, who live always one paycheck away from hunger. And when unemployment strikes them, it strikes not only their wallets but their hope. Brazile urges us to see their suffering not as statistics, but as the shared human wound that calls for compassion and wisdom.

History offers us many mirrors to her truth. In the depths of the Great Depression, millions of Americans faced the same shadow of hunger. It was then that leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt understood that hunger weakens a nation from within more surely than any invading army. He built programs to feed the hungry, to restore faith and strength to the people. Decades later, the food stamp program—now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—continued that mission, ensuring that no family would have to choose between rent and food, between survival and shame. It was not a gift to the poor—it was an investment in the health, productivity, and moral integrity of the nation.

Yet Brazile’s words also carry a warning. To cut nutritional assistance is not merely an act of frugality; it is, as she says, immoral and shortsighted. The ancients knew that famine brings not only hunger, but unrest, disease, and decline. When a society forgets to feed its people, it plants the seeds of its own undoing. Hunger in one home spreads weakness across the land, for no society can thrive when its children grow up malnourished, or when its workers struggle through exhaustion. Health and education—the twin foundations of progress—cannot stand without nourishment. Food is the first medicine, the first teacher. Without it, no reform, no dream, no democracy can endure.

The wisdom here is both moral and practical. To protect families from hunger is to safeguard the very engine of the future. A well-fed child learns more, dreams larger, and grows into a citizen who contributes to the good of all. A nation that refuses this truth, choosing instead to abandon its poor in the name of austerity, blinds itself to its own prosperity. To deny food is to deny the divine spark of potential in every human being. But to feed, to nourish, to sustain—that is the act of a people who understand that their collective fate depends on the well-being of each soul.

The lesson, then, is timeless: compassion is the foundation of civilization. Support those who feed the hungry, not only through government, but through personal action. Share with your neighbors, advocate for the voiceless, and remember that generosity is not the privilege of the rich, but the responsibility of the human. For every meal given is a seed of peace, every act of care a thread of strength woven into the fabric of the nation.

So remember, O child of this age, the teaching of Donna Brazile: to feed the hungry is to heal the world. Hunger is not a test of the poor, but of the powerful; not a question of economics, but of ethics. Let your heart, and your nation, be judged by the fullness of its tables and the kindness of its hands. For a society that nourishes all its people will never go hungry for hope.