In the Great Depression, when I was a child, the greatest sin imaginable was to let others go hungry when you had food, however little, to share. Whatever your religious beliefs, if any, that was the most unforgivable crime against humanity.

Now the Republican-controlled House would cut food stamps by almost $40 billion over 10 years. In the Senate, if the GOP had its way, such spending would go down by $4 billion over 10 years.

The Tea Party won’t offer America’s hungry a crust of bread to go with their rhetoric. “Let them eat cake,” said Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution (was it brioche?), but our self-appointed moral royalty will only say that programs to feed the hungry have “grown out of control.”

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