According to this commentary by Joel Berg, executive director of the New York Coalition Against Hunger, he and other social services advocates have trouble understanding why the federal government is ready to spend “a trillion dollars” to bail out the financial sector, while millions go hungry across the U.S. “When advocates point out that our nation is facing…soaring hunger and homelessness, and that a large-scale bailout is needed to prevent social services nationwide from buckling under the increasing load, we are told that the money these agencies need just doesn’t exist.” Berg cites USDA statistics showing that in 2006, 35.5 million Americans (up 4 million from 1999) live in households unable to afford enough food to eat – households that include more than 12 million children. When advocates called on Congress to “obtain serious funding increases to meet the soaring needs,” they were told “times are just too tough to increase budgets.” Berg notes that times are “bleak” in New York City, with the mayor and state governor working to cut emergency feeding programs while the number of meals served by the city-supported food pantries and soup kitchens has increased nine percent over the past year. Berg concludes “Just as it is unthinkable for the country to allow financial giants to go belly-up, it should be unthinkable to look the other way as tens of millions of low-income Americans (the types of people who clean the offices of AIG and Fannie Mae at night) go without food or shelter. It’s time to get our priorities in order.”
