Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are on pretty much the same page when it comes to nutrition assistance programs: cut cut cut. After years of House Republicans pushing big cuts to food stamps, Trump’s budget proposes $193 billion in cuts over 10 years. Whether they want to take food out of the mouths of more than 40 million struggling Americans, many of them children, is the kind of thing Republicans should expect to get some questions about, but Nebraska Republican Rep. Adrian Smith seems to have been surprised when NPR’s Scott Simon went to the heart of the issue.
Asked if every American is entitled to eat, Smith ducked and weaved and hedged not once, but three times:
SIMON: Well, let me ask you this bluntly - is every American entitled to eat?
SMITH: Well, they - nutrition, obviously, we know is very important. And I would hope that we can look to...
SIMON: Well, not just important, it's essential for life. Is every American entitled to eat?
SMITH: It is essential. It is essential.
SIMON: So is every American entitled to eat, and is food stamps something that ought to be that ultimate guarantor?
SMITH: I think that we know that, given the necessity of nutrition, there could be a number of ways that we could address that.
Simple question: Is every American entitled to eat? Not one yes or no in any of Smith’s answers. There’s a guy who really doesn’t want to answer a straightforward question, the kind of question you should be able to answer from the gut—or the heart—without needing to think through a lot of complicated policy issues.
Let’s be real: Adrian Smith’s answer to “is every American entitled to eat” is “no,” but he knows it’s the wrong answer, or at least an answer he won’t be able to defend.
So he offers up keen insights like “nutrition, obviously, we know is very important” and “given the necessity of nutrition, there could be a number of ways that we could address that.” And would he vote for a budget that cuts food stamps? “I want to look at an entire budget, look at all of the details.”
What “details” is he looking at in deciding whether to take food away from struggling families?