Hunger Activists Starve to Protest GOP Budget Cuts

With the GOP salivating over budget cuts, a group of religious leaders and anti-hunger activists are going on a hunger strike in response to measures they say go too far. “The budget is a moral document,” said former Rep. Tony Hall, the head of the Alliance to End Hunger. “We do need to cut the deficit … but not on the backs of the poor and hungry.” He said 38 organizations and more than 4,000 individuals had signed on for the fast, CNN reports.

Hall spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, accompanied by the heads of three other anti-hunger organizations, according to the Huffington Post. They decried proposed cuts to food aid, both at home and abroad, as well as programs like Head Start, and said they’d consume nothing but water this week, with some juice added in thereafter. “This fast is what I call a spiritual escalation,” said the head of the Christian group Sojourners. “We’re praying and fasting, hoping for some breakthroughs.” (More hunger strike stories.)