Our country is divided. Though the line is not completely clear and defined, there is a definite division. On one side of the line people enjoy lavish meals at fancy restaurants with over-priced food.

On the other side of that line families struggle to find where their next meal is coming from, haunted by grumbling stomachs—they pay with food stamps in hopes of filling their family’s stomachs with the necessities like bread and water.

However, neither side understands what it is like to live like the other, so why would either blindly make cuts that would affect millions on the other side. 

Last Thursday, house republicans passed a bill that will cut billions of dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. According to the congressional budget office, nearly four million people will be removed from the food stamp program under the house bill starting next year.

That means that about 14 million people over ten years will be removed from the program, according to an article in The New York Times. 

But I’m not the only one who feels the food stamp program should not have been decreased—last week a democratic house representative made a speech outlining the way she felt, which is shockingly similar to my feelings on the subject. Who would have thought I wasn’t the only one?

According to Representative Jackie Speier, who delivered the speech, many of the representatives who had a hand in making the cuts get a plethora of money when they go on ‘business trips’ to eat and pay nothing out of the pocket. 

According to Speier, one member received $127.41 a day for food on his trip to Argentina where he ordered steak, vodka and caviar—yup, caviar. The people who will be taken off of their food stamps can barely eat three meals a day but the people making cuts are living the life of luxury. 

How is that fair? Well, it simply isn’t.

The ‘rich’ creating laws that effect the ‘poor’ gives me as much nausea in my stomach as men creating laws that affect woman—it makes no sense. No person can dictate others’ lives because they have no idea what it is like to be them. 

Speier mentioned that her and a few other democrats have taken the challenge of living on food stamps for a week, but mentioned that no republicans have actually tried it. Well, isn’t that somethin’? 

They are quick to make changes that won’t affect them when they have never walked in the other’s shoes—in this case standing behind an ever-empty shopping cart. 

I think these republicans should feel the pain of hunger and live the feelings of defeat because they cannot feed their children before they cut people from the program.

They should think about each and every child that will experience hunger during the day before they shove more caviar in their mouths. They should change their votes along with their attitudes and think about the people their legislation will affect, not the money it will save.