As government food aid is extended to more than ten percent of the population and as much as 40 percent of children in some towns, it’s odd that we’re not hearing well-fed politicians talking about a “government takeover of the food supply.”
Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times have done the country a service with their insightful look at the new food-stamp economy in America. Nearly 40 million people get this form of government aid right now, and USDA officials who oversee the program estimate that 15 million more might need the benefit, but have not yet applied.
This is a social program that works. Let’s start with the fact that food stamps are no longer stamps — they’re an electronic card that people needing help can swipe with relative anonymity. So Americans who can’t find work but want to aren’t exposed to the stigma of pulling monopoly money out of their purses or wallets.
USDA officials realized a little marketing was in order — and came up with “an upbeat change of name . . . [w]hat most people still call food stamps is technically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.”
It’s helping put real food on the table — DeParle and Gebeloff talk to one man who questions whether others are taking advantage of the government’s help, but who admits that he and his family now have
fresh fruit, vegetables, bread and meat, and something they had not fully expected — an enormous sense of relief.
Some are criticizing the program as just another welfare program — as if helping people out in tough times can be parsed and broken down into policy implications. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has even been suggesting that food stamps increase childhood obesity. As he sips his grandé skim latté, perhaps.