We’re still waiting to hear who is going to be the president of the United States, with record voter turnout being the most notable story on the airwaves. However, there is another record that is not getting as much attention—how much was spent on political races this election.

A CNBC report indicates that about $14 billion poured into political coffers for the 2020 election, with $6.7 billion of that aimed at the presidential race. The amount, if accurate, would be double what was spent for the election in 2016.

In other words, a large fortune was spent to put advertising on the internet, on our television sets, on the radio airwaves and elsewhere. That $14 billion resulted in repeated mostly negative advertising depicting opponents as monsters beyond evil who will turn our communities, states, nation and even the world into a smoking crater.

I can’t tell you how close I came to chucking my television out the window and begging my internet provider to cut me off because it seemed like, every time I watched a program or checked something out on YouTube, there was a commercial claiming the end times would arrive soon if you dared to vote for what’s-his-face. Buying a secluded cabin in the woods was looking more and more attractive.

It baffles me how people are willing to spend so much money to elect a president or someone to serve in Congress, and yet we have a number of nonprofit organizations continuing to solicit a few shekels to feed the hungry. Millions in our own are starving, but folks are spending the cash to elect politicians instead of making sure their neighbors have something to eat.

According to Feeding America, there were 35 million people in this country who experienced hunger in 2019. That has only increased this year since the coronavirus pandemic hit, with an estimated 50 million expected to experience food insecurity—a sanitized way of saying starvation—in 2020.

Yet America decided to spend $14 billion to support political figures, many of whom have their own personal fortunes to pay for meals on their own tables. I don’t get why folks eagerly open their wallets for the fat cats in our society but couldn’t care less about the straggly strays whose ribcages are showing.

The $14 billion for 2020’s election cycle, which includes a four-year presidential race, would equate to $3.5 billion for each year since the previous election. Can you imagine how many meals and food boxes that could pay for? It might not be enough to eradicate hunger forever, but it would make a serious dent in an abhorrent crisis in our country.

Feeding America’s 2019 annual report shows the organization awarded $86.3 million in grants to other organizations in order to provide food for those in need. That is less than 6% of the money that went into the elections. Imagine increasing access for food 16-fold. The thought is staggering.

The goal for Feeding America is to make sure there is enough access to healthy food for anyone who needs it by 2025. Could you imagine how big of a shot in the arm that goal would get if people in the next presidential election in 2024 would choose to keep their political dollars in the community instead of in the pockets of people willing to turn a blind eye to the hunger problem in the United States? Hunger would become a rarity instead of commonplace.

Now that the political season has come to a merciful end, it’s time we turn our attention to issues that matter in our country, like bringing the season of hunger to just as big a conclusion. Let’s put our dollars into something that matters. Don’t feed the political beast—feed the hungry.