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“There’s a lot of people in the country that are fasting and praying right now,” said Hall, who represented the Dayton region in Congress from 1979 until 2002, when he became U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture under President George W. Bush.
Hall, 75, said there is a famine in Africa threatening 20 million people, Americans go hungry because they don’t have enough money to make ends meet, and Hall says the budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump this week will make things worse on all fronts.
Trump’s $4.1 trillion fiscal 2018 budget includes $3.6 trillion in cuts over ten years to domestic programs, including food stamps, crop insurance and food and health aid for other countries.
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“This is the harshest budget that has ever been proposed, ever in the 20th and 21st centuries. This is the budget of pain,” Hall said. “It hurts senior citizens. It hurts children. It hurts people that are disabled. It’s not what America is about.”
Trump’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Trump’s fellow Republican, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, called the proposal “dead on arrival” in Congress. But Hall said he believes Republicans will still pass cuts to domestic programs.
Hall began fasting to draw attention to hunger in 1993, when he went on a 22-day, water-only fast, his longest.
“I was much younger then. I’m 75 now and I’m not sure how long this fast is going to last. Maybe two weeks,” said Hall, who is drinking V-8 juice, Gatorade, juice and protein powder drinks.
“I do it because I feel called to do it. I do it because of my faith,” Hall said. “When you fast and you pray it seems to me that God leans a little bit closer to you. And you’re saying, ‘I want your attention.’ And you do get his attention.”
Hall left Congress in 2002 after then-President George W. Bush asked him to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. He was replaced in Congress by U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton.
After leaving the UN job Hall spent time as executive director of the Alliance to End Hunger, where he still serves as director emeritus.
Hall founded the Dayton-based Hall Hunger Initiative more than a year ago and the organization is working to get a grocery store in the “food desert” of inner-city Dayton. He said the lack of grocery stores in the inner city makes it hard for residents to get affordable, nutritional food, especially if they have no transportation other than the city bus.
The goal is to open the Gem City Market, a co-op store, in 2019 on Lower Salem Avenue, said Rick Carne senior advisor at the Hall Hunger Initiative.
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