The Patriot Post® · Even More Redistribution for Food Won't Help

“We’re growing the economy, and it’s growing in a way that it hasn’t in years and years,” Joe Biden boasted last week when asked about rampant inflation. “I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time.”

The economy has had two straight quarters of negative GDP, so it’s awfully odd to argue that the economy is “growing.” Headline unemployment may be pretty low, but employers can’t find workers and millions of people are still sitting on the sidelines.

Inflation hovering around 40-year highs was created by too much government spending, all of which was justified by the pandemic but most of which had little to do with actual mitigation. The primary culprit was Biden’s American Rescue Plan inflation bomb, which unnecessarily injected $1.9 trillion in cash chasing too few goods and services. Before that law, inflation had been below 2% for months. It’s been well over 8% since March.

Obviously, if your worldview begins and ends with government, as Biden’s does, the only thing you can think to do is … spend more money. And that’s exactly what Biden is pushing for this week.

Fresh off spending $700 billion on his deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act and another $420 billion (at least) on student loan “forgiveness,” our spendthrift president is stumping for an increase in spending on food.

“My plan,” he said at the first White House conference on hunger since 1969, “would make at least nine million more children eligible for free school meals — a major first step for free meals for every single student.” He doesn’t even want means testing so as to limit aid to needy families. That conference in ‘69, by the way, drastically expanded the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, a.k.a. food stamps), and introduced the Women, Infants and Children program. Since then, trillions of taxpayer dollars have been redistributed to eradicate poverty and hunger.

In 2019 alone, the feds spent $60 billion on SNAP. In 2021, thanks to waivers of requirements and a more generous benefits formula, that increased to $114 billion.

“And yet,” marvels the Associated Press, “10% of U.S. households in 2021 suffered food insecurity.” Gosh, it’s a mystery, isn’t it?

What has government overspending done to the price of food?

Groceries are 13.5% more expensive than they were just one year ago, which is the biggest increase in 43 years. Staples are up even more — bread (16%), milk (17%), lunch meats (18%), and eggs (40%) give a window into how much this is hurting families. Thanks to Bidenflation, 39% of Americans have cut back on food purchases. Some of them are turning to food banks or going into debt just to feed the kids. An estimated 13 million more Americans have sought assistance than before the pandemic.

Given this bleak economic landscape, Biden wants to renew extra pandemic spending on food — even after he recently declared “the pandemic is over.” According to The Wall Street Journal, “A program in place during the pandemic that allowed schools to serve free breakfast and lunch to all children ended at the start of this school year, when lawmakers allowed it to lapse.” Republicans blocked an effort in this week’s stopgap spending measure to renew the program, and Biden is pushing back.

The answer to this government-caused problem is not to spend more taxpayer money on food. And yet more spending — and the intentional increase in dependency it creates — is the only answer ever offered by Big Government Democrats.