The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is our country’s largest anti-hunger program for men, women, and children. 42 million poor Americans lost their SNAP benefits (f.k.a. food stamps) on October 1. This was caused by the bipartisan gridlock in the U.S. Senate, which resulted in the longest federal government shutdown in American history until November 12.
Yesterday was day 43 of the shutdown. Fortunately, it ended in the House of Representatives with a 222-209 vote in favor of the Republicans yesterday evening, and the president reopened the government at 10:24 p.m. (EST).
Since October 1, 670,000 federal employees have been furloughed, and approximately 730,000 individuals are still working without pay, causing them extreme financial hardship. This has also included “1.3 million active duty [military] personnel and over 750,000 National Guard and reserve personnel” missing paychecks.
Unfortunately, the shutdown needlessly caused more delinquencies among people either furloughed or working without pay. During the shutdown, these people had great difficulty in paying such consumer debts as credit cards, insurance premiums, mortgages, bank loans, utility bills, car loans, etc., which hopefully will not result in a bleak Thanksgiving holiday or worsening credit rating.
Meanwhile, almost all one hundred U.S. senators hypocritically received their salaries while a total of 1,400,000 federal civilian employees and over 2 million soldiers worked without pay. My, oh, my, what a surprise!
This was truly unjust.
These unpaid federal employees included such critically important jobs as air traffic controllers and soldiers, who are vital to our national safety and security. They also included an alphabet soup of numerous federal agencies: TSA officers, CBP agents, and other employees, who work at NASA, EPA, DHS, DOJ, and ICE, along with Commerce and the Secret Service, among many others.
SNAP recipients, which comprise approximately 17.5% of the population or almost one in five Americans, represent the poorest people in the U.S. Many hungry adults, especially children, are totally or greatly dependent on these benefits for purchasing food every month. It is impossible for food banks, soup kitchens, and church pantries to solve a desperate hunger crisis during a government shutdown.
I read an article on msnbc.com published on November 3 entitled,“As food aid expired, Trump cheered his marble bathroom and held a ‘Gatsby’ party,” which was written by Steve Benen. The reference to the white and black “marble bathroom,” which was accented by extensive gold faucets and trim, was the most anachronistic, extravagant, and unnecessary remodeled bathroom in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House since 1861.
I wonder what President Lincoln, who was born in a humble Kentucky log cabin with an outhouse, would have thought of such a lavish redecorated bathroom with statuary marble and gold faucets when the U.S. Treasury will be $40 trillion in debt a year from now? Something tells me he would not have approved of Trump’s renovated “water closet.”
The president seems oblivious that the U.S. is now almost $38.2 trillion in debt. Since May 16, 2024, according to the House Budget Committee, the U.S. spends more on interest on the national debt than “national defense and Medicare”combined. That is not good.
Trump’s timing to announce the expensive remodeling of the Lincoln bedroom bathroom during a government shutdown may have been bad publicity for him and the GOP. In fact, it still might be bad publicity for him in the midterm elections on November 3, 2026.
Unfortunately, the economy is still suffering from Biden’s inflation caused by recklessly adding $8.4 trillion to the national debt, and allowing approximately over ten million illegal immigrants to enter the U.S., which excluded gotaways, sex traffickers and fentanyl narco-terrorists costing the U.S. Treasury countless hundreds of billions of dollars if not more in housing, SNAP, health care, incarceration, etc.
Criticism of Trump has also been caused by his ill-timed demolition of the East Wing to build a new, enlarged 90,000 square-foot ballroom despite being funded by wealthy private donors, while many Americans are still facing hunger, increasing food prices, and pernicious shrinkflation. The optics were bad despite a legitimate need to renovate and expand the East Wing, with Democrat opponents accusing the president of doling out future political favors and federal contracts.
I also read another more poignant article on abcnews.go.com published on November 4 entitled, “Trump hosted ‘Great Gatsby’ Halloween party hours before SNAP funding lapsed,” which was written by Fritz Farrow and Ivan Pereira. The two-minute embedded video on the website graphically depicted the outdoor poolside festivities in balmy 70° weather.
ABC’s headlines said it all. The 42 million hungry Americans on SNAP can go hungry. Let them survive by standing in bread lines, sitting at soup kitchens, and going to food pantries à la 1933 to 1941.
Another video at the party had a beautiful ultra-flexible woman dressed in a bikini and white high heels provocatively sitting in a giant see-through martini cup, entertaining the guests near the outdoor Mar-a-Lago Club swimming pool. Other photographs and videos captured the evening festive fun amidst a beautiful Palm Beach sunset over the Atlantic Ocean.
All this occurred while the guests later dined on a “three-course menu of beef filet, truffle dauphinoise, pan-seared scallops and a trio of desserts including ‘Trump chocolate cake.’” Yummy.
The ill-timed “Gatsby party” at the Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach joyously celebrated Halloween despite 42 million Americans not receiving their food benefits on November 1. Throughout the evening, the partygoers emulated the carefree and pleasure-seeking class reminiscent of the roaring twenties as depicted in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, with a sumptuous banquet for the ultrarich and well-connected in the White House, Washington, and elsewhere.
Trump was completely tone-deaf to the looming hunger and negative press publicity of the 42 million SNAP recipients lacking food on Sunday, November 1, which was also the Christian Sabbath.
I wonder if President Trump prayed for the hungry SNAP recipients when (or even) if he went to the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea the following Sunday morning?
The Gatsby-themed Halloween party was extremely bad optics for the Republican Party in the midst of a government shutdown and two off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey on November 4. I am certain that many Independent and Democrat lower-middle-class or poor voters in those two states, along with the voters in the mayoral election in New York City, viewed the ‘Gatsby‘ Party as pure indifference to their economic plight or lack of “affordability.” It certainly increased their anxiety about the leadership of the nation’s economy.
To these Democrats, it simply did not matter that the Biden administration primarily caused food inflation in 2025 by the massive printing of money. Under Biden, my average food bill as an individual increased from $200 a month in January 2021 to $285 in January 2025, which was a 70% increase in my food expenses. Many anti-Trump voters in 2025 falsely blamed the price for the continued food Inflation on the White House.
The callous ‘Gatsby’ party of hundreds of extremely wealthy members and guests dining and dancing at the Mar-a-Lago Club on Halloween was in stark contrast to the 42 million Americans facing hunger on November 1. It clearly reminded me of when the despised French Queen Marie Antoinette (a.k.a. “Madame Déficit”) apocryphally stated, “let them eat cake (brioche)” while oblivious to the plight of the underfed and hungry poor Parisian peasants and workers in 1789.
I last read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, which was published in 1925, decades ago. One of my favorite movies based on this novel, which starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow and was released on March 29, 1974, graphically portrayed the stark difference between the rich and poor in both New York City and Long Island during the roaring twenties.
Thank God for FDR in 1933.
I thought that the Redford movie was an accurate adaptation of the novel in regard to the plot, theme, and dialogue. However, there is no denying that this novel was an ode to the decadent hedonism of the ultrarich millionaires circa 1925, when the American middle class was struggling to emerge for the first time in U.S. history. Unfortunately, most of the middle class and much of the nation’s wealth crashed four years later in the eleven-year devastating Great Depression of 1929.
Perhaps President Trump has forgotten the history of how the Roaring Twenties ended? Unfortunately, many Americans naively think that another Great Depression could never happen again with the upcoming centenary anniversary of 2029. They may be sadly mistaken in not foreseeing a catastrophic federal bankruptcy because of our unsustainable national debt.
I thought that President Trump’s Gatsby-themed party at the Mar-a-Lago Club, where the exorbitant membership fee is $1 million, was in extremely poor taste. The optics again were horribly wrong for the GOP, forgetting or ignoring that so many Americans, who lost their SNAP benefits and faced hunger on November 1, in a country where there should be NO hunger.
I think that Trump’s ‘Gatsby party’ just confirmed to the rank-and-file Democrats in New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City on November 4 their worst fears that the country club Republicans are back, and they ultimately only care about the millionaire and billionaire class. The election results were a total shutout for Team Blue from coast to coast and perhaps a harbinger of increasing opposition to Republic policies in the upcoming mid-term elections on November 3, 2026.
I truly hope that Trump’s tariffs and the reindustrialization of the U.S. succeed in the next five to ten years.
Robert L. Maronic
