The Trump administration has announced it will restart SNAP benefits, but delayed and cut, leaving thousands of families with continued uncertainty about how they’ll feed their families. Our Governor needs to step up and use available resources to fill the empty bellies of Montana children.
Governor Gianforte has been turning his wealthy and out-of-touch back on Montanans and their needs. Montana’s multi-millionaire Governor, who lives by the Gospel according to Greed, proves repeatedly that when it comes to compassion, he’s running a budget deficit.
Despite 77,000 Montanans being unsure about how they will feed their families, Gianforte has announced that he won’t use the state’s crisis funds to keep SNAP benefits properly funded.
Sadly, no surprise. The Governor has twice in the past refused $10 million for hungry kids, only changing course the second time after public pressure. The 2025 legislature passed funding for foodbanks and funding for school lunch programs. The Governor vetoed both. The man with a private jet said no to hungry children.
What is truly obscene is that Montana has the money and the Governor has the authority to avert this crisis. It is in his hands alone, and yet Gianforte refuses. The man who brags about running government like a business thinks starving people is good business.
Gianforte should tap Montana’s Debt and Liability Free Account, a fund holding $268 million of taxpayer money set aside for exactly this kind of emergency. Legislators updated the fund this year to allow its use to replace federal funds that have been reduced or rescinded.
It would take a mere fraction of state money to ensure that no child goes hungry this Thanksgiving. The legislature did their job. The Governor needs to his and stop playing politics with the empty stomachs of children.
Gianforte is a man who can stop hunger in his own state with the stroke of a pen, but chooses to keep that pen capped. In a grotesque performance, he feigns powerlessness while counting his investment income. That’s not conservative governance — that’s moral bankruptcy with a trust fund.
Cruelty is not courage. Negligence is not leadership.
Do hungry kids score political points? We refuse to believe that.
Governor Gianforte, please stop hiding behind your piles of money and excuses. Do your job. Lift a manicured finger to assure no child in Montana go hungry
How shall history remember you, Governor? As a man who could draw a moral line at the hunger of children or as a multi-millionaire who lets kids starve?
We have a Montana solution. Please use it, Governor. But hurry, time doesn’t heal hungry bellies.
Mary Ann Dunwell represents Senate District 42. Mary Caferro is the representative for House District 81.