Author James Bovard explains for Barron’s readers that the federal food stamp program has failed to meet its goals, despite massive spending increases.
Since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, food-stamp spending has more than doubled, to roughly $80 billion a year, and the number of recipients has risen 70%, to 47 million. But the Obama administration and congressional Democrats are hitting the panic button over a scheduled phaseout of special benefits enacted to fight the last recession.
Perhaps more importantly, the food-stamp program (recently renamed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) has dismally failed to improve nutrition, while fueling epidemics of obesity and diabetes. And the current program is more corrupt and wasteful than the program that exists in the imagination of its supporters. …
… FEDERAL LAW SAYS the main purpose of food stamps is “raising levels of nutrition among low-income households.” The program is a dismal failure on this score: The USDA’s most recent national study found no difference in nutrient intake between food-stamp recipients and eligible nonrecipients.
Food stamps are simply a blank check to enable recipients to procure tens of thousands of calories per month. Almost half of the women collecting food stamps are obese, according to a 2011 study financed by the National Institutes of Health. It also noted that “persons receiving food stamps consume more meat, added sugars, and total fats rather than fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy products.” A California study (published in 2010 in Public Health Nutrition) found that adult food-stamp recipients are 30% more likely to be obese than eligible nonrecipients. An analysis by Ohio State University scientist Jay Zagorsky found that the longer women stayed on food stamps, the more weight they gained.
But the USDA does not seem to care whether it’s misfeeding or overfeeding low-income Americans. The department’s inspector general reported in June that most subsidized households receive benefits from more than one federal food program—even though the amount of federal food stamps provided to people with virtually no income is intended to ensure 100% of calorie needs. The inspector recommended that the USDA study the impact of “providing overlapping benefits” to recipients, but the department rejected the proposal because “it would divert limited resources away from other pressing issues of greater policy relevance.”
