Forty-one million Americans, nearly 13 percent of our nation, rely on food assistance to get by.
A healthy, prosperous country doesn’t have one in eight citizens dependent on government aid to eat. It doesn’t normalize crisis as policy. It doesn’t applaud itself for keeping people fed while quietly accepting that they cannot feed themselves.
Yet here we are. A wealthy nation with record spending, record debt, and record dependency. And Congress calls it “governance.”
When the Safety Net Becomes the System
SNAP was supposed to be a temporary bridge for hard times. Instead, it’s become a monument to Washington’s inability to solve anything before it collapses. Every few years, we end up at the same cliff — threats of government shutdowns, funding battles, midnight votes — pretending to “save” programs that should have been fixed long ago.
That’s the pattern: Washington waits until it’s too late. Then it blames the other side. Then it passes another trillion-dollar band-aid.
No one asks the real question: Why do so many Americans need rescuing in the first place?
A Society That Forgets Its Strength
When nearly 13 percent of Americans need food assistance, it isn’t just a budget issue, it’s a reflection of who we’ve become.
A country that once led the world in productivity, innovation, and self-reliance now leads in chronic illness, stress, and debt.
We’ve traded community for bureaucracy.
Work for paperwork.
Health for convenience.
And the politicians who created this dependency are literally on a paid vacation.
Ann Wagner has been in Congress for nearly a decade and a half while this crisis deepened — and she’s been silent.
Silent as costs rise.
Silent as health declines.
Silent as our people lose the ability to stand on their own.
Do you think this is leadership?
The Illusion of Action
Every shutdown season, Congress rushes to remind Americans that “vital programs” are at stake: food assistance, veterans’ pay, basic services. But it’s always the same story, the crisis wasn’t the shutdown; the crisis is why we always end up here.
It’s not compassion when government feeds the people it failed to empower.
It’s not leadership when lawmakers keep the poor dependent so they can campaign on “protecting” them later.
It’s not fiscal responsibility when we borrow from our children to buy short-term peace.
The swamp thrives on cycles of panic and dependency. The longer we pretend that’s normal, the weaker we become — economically, morally, and physically.
Make America Healthy Again
I don’t have all the answers, but I see this canary in the coal mine.
To Make America Healthy Again, we must admit that this level of dependence is not acceptable. It’s a warning sign.
We’ve built systems that react, not prevent.
We fund symptoms, not solutions.
We wait until the brink to act, and then we call it governing.
It’s too late when we’re standing at the edge of a shutdown, arguing over who gets blamed instead of who gets better.
Real leadership means building a country that doesn’t need emergency fixes every fiscal year.
It means health before handouts, strength before slogans, and responsibility before politics.
Ann Wagner is missing.
Congress is broken.
And America deserves leaders who see 13 percent on food stamps not as a budget line, but as a national emergency.
It’s time to stop managing decline.
It’s time to Make America Healthy Again.