The Editorial Board, USA Today: Let Food Stamp Recipients Eat Socialism

Food stamp sign at a farmer's market in Maine. Robert F. Bukaty, AP

Who knew that President Trump and some in his Cabinet were closet Socialists. How else to explain their plan to slash a partnership between government and private industry that provides food for the poorest Americans and partially replace it with a program fresh from Cold War Bulgaria.

Since the 1960s, low-income Americans have received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), popularly known as food stamps, and used them to buy food at about 260,000 retailers from Wal-Mart to corner groceries to farmers' markets. Now, the Trump administration has a bright idea: Eliminate much of the freedom to shop in private markets, add a dose of bureaucracy, and instead give the 42 million poor Americans using the program all the convenience of a Depression-era soup line.

Under Trump's proposed budget, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) would purchase food with its bulk buying power, put in containers called “America’s Harvest Boxes,” and somehow get them to 16.4 million households across the country. Just how, no one has explained. That will be a problem for the states. But the administration is sure of this much: Its plan would save nearly $130 billion over the next decade.

Never mind that this would require a gigantic bureaucracy to store food, assemble boxes, deliver the boxes to states, let people pick up their boxes or distribute boxes to recipients, keep track of the addresses and moves of millions of Americans, track who get the boxes and who doesn’t, and find a speedy way to replace boxes that are late or stolen so people don’t go hungry. Just how government would account for people with dietary restrictions or allergies is also unstated. More magic from the states, no doubt.

All this so recipients who now choose what they eat and buy fresh, nutritious food at local stores with what amounts to a debit card can instead get a "Harvest Box" filled with pastas, cereals and other non-perishables. And there's this: The boxes would provide only half of the monthly allotment, so the government would still be distributing debit cards. Twice the government and half the efficiency.

This from an administration that hasn't shown much ability to get food to hungry people, even in an emergency. It fumbled a contract to deliver 30 million meals to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and ended up pulling the contract after only 50,000 meals were delivered.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney found a snappy way to describe this new scheme, calling it a “Blue Apron-type program.” That’s not only ludicrous but about as sensitive to people on food stamps as “Let them eat cake.” Blue Apron is a delivery service aimed at well-heeled customers who want to purchase fresh ingredients to make fancy recipes without going to the store. Meals start at $9.99 per serving.

The SNAP benefit for each person in a single-parent household with children is about $1.40 per meal — not exactly fancy recipe resources.
This wacky idea has also taken attention from deep cuts to the program, including reducing benefits for households of more than six members — about 204,000 of them. The justification? A USDA spokesperson suggests remembering "that the first word in the name of the program is 'supplemental.' SNAP is meant to augment an individual's or family's food spending.” That should comfort the seventh member of a family who is left out.

Republicans have a reputation for favoring free choice and private enterprise over government mandates and bureaucracy. Not anymore. With "America's Harvest Boxes," the Trump administration is delivering digital-age innovation only Karl Marx would approve.

(USA TODAY)