“Republicans are taking food away from children to give tax cuts to billionaires.” Those were the words from former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office — a soundbite crafted to inflame emotion rather than inform truth. It is the kind of rhetoric that wins headlines but loses honesty. No policy under President Trump, or any recent Republican administration, took food from children or handed it to the rich. That statement is political theater — compassion weaponized to defend waste, dependency, and deception.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, began with good intentions. In 2000, about seventeen million Americans were on food stamps, costing the nation roughly seventeen billion dollars. By 2024, those numbers had more than doubled to over forty-one million people, with costs surpassing one hundred billion dollars a year. That is not compassion — that is unsustainable.
SNAP was designed as a safety net, not a lifestyle. It was meant to help children, the elderly, and those who truly could not help themselves. But today, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, about forty-one percent of all SNAP households are single-person homes. In 2023, that meant around 4.1 million single adults living alone and receiving assistance — many of them able-bodied, working-age adults without dependents. These are not the families the program was built for.
That shift represents the real problem. The issue is not whether we feed the hungry — every decent nation must. The issue is whether we create a society that rewards effort or excuses idleness.
President Ronald Reagan once warned, “Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.” Yet the liberal left has done the opposite. They have fought every attempt to enforce work requirements, broadened eligibility, and sold dependency as compassion. Under their leadership, the number of recipients has soared while the incentive to work has declined.
King Solomon said, “A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” (Proverbs 13:4) That timeless truth exposes the lie. When government replaces diligence with dependency, it robs people of the satisfaction that comes only through work. Dependency is not mercy — it is bondage.
Thomas Jefferson warned, “If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.” That warning was prophetic. The more citizens look to government for their survival, the less they look to themselves for strength. And a people who no longer value self-reliance will soon trade freedom for comfort — and call it fairness.
The liberal left twists truth to make accountability look cruel and dependency look kind. But true compassion tells a man he is capable, not helpless. It says, “You can work. You can rise. You can contribute.” False compassion keeps him where he is — dependent, controlled, and politically useful.
SNAP is not just a line item in a budget; it is a reflection of our national character. The question before America is not whether we will feed the poor, but whether we will continue feeding a system that keeps millions from ever leaving poverty behind.
The time has come to pair compassion with courage — to tell the truth, even when it offends the powerful. Because compassion without truth is corruption, and a nation built on deception will eventually collapse under its own good intentions.