"To keep somebody from starving," is all that Tami Boling is trying to do. As director of the Big Ugly Community Center in Lincoln County, she oversees the center's distribution of food to needy families. But her shelves are increasingly bare.
Across West Virginia, food pantries like hers are facing greater stress, according to reporting by Tre Spencer, of Mountain State Spotlight, as reprinted by the Gazette-Mail. There are several reasons for the crisis, and they boil down to conservative cruelty masquerading as fiscal responsibility.
Much of the extra pain in the bellies of our needy is the direct result of President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act that became law in July 2025. All four of West Virginia's members of Congress supported the bill that now has thrown at least 9,000 state residents off SNAP (food stamps) assistance or greatly cut the pittance they still receive.
Tariffs and the Iran war have added to the problem by bringing about inflation, which causes food stamps, like money, to not go as far at the grocery store. Is it necessary to say that Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice and Reps. Riley Moore and Carol Miller all voted for the bill? Perhaps, one day soon, they will trouble themselves to explain how creating more hungry West Virginians is "beautiful."
This week, Gov. Patrick Morrisey responded to questions about the food crisis among our poor. He implied that there are scads of people who purchase beer and cigarettes with their food stamps. I have no doubt that it happens, occasionally, although the governor supplied no findings to indicate that SNAP abuse happens on a wide scale -- and left out that EBT cards literally will not process payments for such items. It wasn't a surprise that the governor's response came straight from the Republican playbook that tells us that we must make it more difficult for everyone to vote because, on extraordinarily rare occasions, one ineligible person tries to cast a ballot. Similarly, Morrisey's evident view is that it is righteous that the 99 go hungry because one abuses the system.
As an aside, our governor grouses about waste in food assistance while he enjoys the non-existent fruits of his $3 million conservative boondoggle at West Virginia University, a mess of an academic program whose hallmark is classrooms with invisible students.
The mentality of cutting food stamp benefits goes back to President Ronald Reagan and his promulgation of the "welfare queen" stereotype. Since then, it has been pushed by those who enjoy blaming the poor for being hungry. They are members of the Mr. Bumble School of Social Philosophy. It was in Charles Dickens' tale of "Oliver Twist" that orphanage director Mr. Bumble's sanctimony machine blew a gasket when the starving Oliver Twist asked for more of the gruel that substituted for food.
Some ask, "What would Jesus do?" When faced with hungry people, it's a pretty good bet he'd say, "Feed 'em." After all, although he never talked about abortion or condemned homosexuality, he mentioned the importance of doing right by the poor around 2,000 times.
Some Christian conservatives point out that the Bible says, "If you don't work, you don't eat." Noted spiritual leaders like the late Rush Limbaugh, Fox's Sean Hannity, serial adulterer Newt Gingrich and the very, very pious Rev. Franklin Graham have used that verse as justification for convincing themselves that hungry people have brought belly pangs on themselves.
But it was Paul, not Christ, who wrote the admonition in his letter to Thessalonians. It was a stern redirection they needed when Paul learned they had stopped spreading Christ's teachings in their erroneous belief that the second coming was about to happen -- like, next Tuesday. They got back on the job, once Paul corrected their misunderstanding.
Gov. Morrisey, your chatter about beer and cigarettes, like the quest of congresspeople who seek beauty in starvation, does nothing to help people like Tami Boling feed the needy.
Joseph Wyatt is a Gazette-Mail contributing columnist and Marshall University emeritus professor. Reach him at Wyatt844@hotmail.com.
