The Corrupt Anatomy Of The SNAP Panic

Why garden when you can sign up for SNAP and help American industry at the same time?

Americans ought to be deeply embarrassed at the national panic over the future of food stamps. The level of dependency on this program (42 million people and 22 million households) runs contrary to our entire civic culture and history.

It is a betrayal of the founding vision of commerce, independence, and agronomy. It reveals a fundamentally dangerous rot at the core of the functioning of the food system.

We can hope that the widespread meltdown over even the slightest pause in the program provokes a rethinking of the entire scheme.

The term food stamps is of course deprecated in favor of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) delivered via an EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfer). This is all technocratic euphemism. They are food stamps. The name was changed to disguise the disgrace and the mode of delivery turned into a card that looks like any other.

It was much better when people had to deliver their stamps in front of other customers. At least that preserved some of the stigma with which it was associated. As for nutrition, not so much. The SNAP program amounts to a huge subsidy for the snack-food industry, which turns out to be the key lobbying force behind the entire thing.

The origin of the program traces to 1933. Its main point was not to save people from starvation but to save industry from a downturn at the onset of the Great Depression. The price of wheat, milk, and meat were falling dramatically. The problem was not a lack of demand but a huge overproduction brought about by market distortions.

To understand the economic issue, you have to go back to the Great War when wartime disruptions in Europe provoked reliance on U.S. production. U.S. exports of food expanded dramatically and so did the amount of farmed acreage. The industry kept growing throughout the 1920s, based in part on leverage and inflated expectations of urbanization.

The stock market crashed and this was followed by an immediate trade war that harmed U.S. exports. The bubble broke and prices began to drop dramatically. In other words, the market corrected exactly as it should have given the circumstances.

The market is a beautiful thing: it provided cheap food exactly when it was needed most. But in 1933, a new president took power who was not a fan of the market. He hired a slew of new appointees who imagined themselves to be social and economic planners. So instead of allowing the correction, Washington got in the business of propping up industry.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 had the government buying up surplus food from farmers and distributors and giving it away to people. This was plainly and purely a program of price support. That was the entire point. That’s why the program was administered by the Department of Agriculture, not some other welfare agency.

Meanwhile, the true American system of helping people did the heavy lifting. It was the soup kitchens and church pantries that truly got to work on solving the hunger problem. All the new food stamps did was keep food prices higher than they otherwise would be, and kept the agricultural industry from adjusting according to prevailing conditions.

From then to now, that has been the essence of the program. It’s an industry subsidy. The grocery chains depend on it. So do Big Ag producers. It also works as a vote-buying program by promoting dependency among the citizenry.

The program is completely unregulated in the way a church soup kitchen would be. Privately run food pantries do more than dish up food; they assist people toward fixing up their lives. When they see the program being abused, they cut people off. The Good Samaritan did not just give money but rather life assistance. So too for private charity today.

Government doesn’t do this. It subsidizes large industrial players while promoting dependency. Imagine tiny birds in a nest with their mouths open waiting for the mother bird to arrive with worms. Or think of dogs waiting beneath the table for scraps from plates. That’s how the architects of this program see the American people.

Think of the whole institution of Thanksgiving. It is our number one holiday even though it is not technically part of any religious calendar. You could say it is a high holy day of our civic religion.

And what does it celebrate? It honors the blessings of God in the form of food that nourishes our bodies. When we thank God for the food, what we mean is to thank God for our lives and hands and capacities to work to get that food. It celebrates the capacity of a free and godly people to manage themselves in independence. It celebrates how a society learned to feed itself.

Food stamps from government turn the whole message of Thanksgiving on its head. Instead of work and merit, it institutionalizes dependency on the Crown to feed, which is exactly the practice against which the Founders rebelled. They rejected the Crown’s tea and emoluments in favor of national independence and productivity.

How pathetic that we’ve spent weeks in wailing and gnashing of teeth over possible cuts in free food via electronic transfer! Industry and welfare recipients are screaming: “Oh no no, please don’t take away our free stuff!”

Friends, this is inconsistent with the habits and values of a free and dignified people! I get that these are very hard times. And people are in need.

On the other hand, this is the most obese and sick country in the world, poisoned by an overabundance of genetically modified calorie-rich junk food and burdened with corporate cartels that are equally dependent on government handouts.

“Freedom From Want,” between 1941–1945, by Norman Rockwell. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain

It’s a national disgrace that an entire nation would be yelling and demanding more free food. It’s utter humiliation. This program runs contrary to everything we ever aspired to be as a nation. I hope this pause in benefits serves as a wakeup call to find our way back to our core values before it is too late.

It is not part of our national DNA to have people and industries that are dependent on government handouts in any form. Get some dignity, folks, and man up. Look at the Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving and the pride on the breadwinner’s face as he serves his huge family. That’s who we are. That’s who we can be again.

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