USS Gerald Ford. Photo: US Navy.

There’s an old protest sign I can’t stop thinking about. It read, “It will be a great day in America when our schools have all the money that they need and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to pay for a bomber.” Well, how about for an aircraft carrier?

Where I am, in a rural part of New York state, the radio is packed with appeals from nearby food pantries where, after 43 days of government shutdown, volunteers are terrified that they’ll run out of supplies before Thanksgiving.

With Congress reopening, some safety net spending will be restored, but around here, SNAP budgets don’t come close to meeting real people’s actual food costs. Long before the shutdown, one in five children was going hungry, with 24% of children living in poverty according to the local data-crunchers, and that’s been consistent for years now.

While my neighbors on SNAP are supposed to be happy to receive modest monthly benefits (up to about $298 for a single person), drive two........

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