Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) expired on Saturday amid the government shutdown, putting an estimated forty million people at risk of going hungry. Already the news is full of stories about local food banks getting slammed by poor Americans who have run out of food stamps. And predictably, a lot of these private charities are already failing to meet the demand. A story from Florida is typical:
Community Cooperative had to turn away about 75 people after serving nearly 200 families due to running out of food, although their main market remains stocked. CEO Stefanie Ink Edwards said, “It’s heartbreaking. We never want to turn anybody away to say we’re out of food or we can’t help you. . .”
NBC reports another episode in Arizona:
Lt. Col. Chuck Fowler of the Salvation Army said the organization’s facilities have already begun to notice a high demand for help. After being open for about 90 minutes, one facility closed its doors and turned people away “because we ran out of food that day,” he said.
And in North Carolina, yet another church-run food bank is struggling:
Mount Zion Pastor Rodney Freeman said that Bountiful Blessings has been running out of food in recent months, and they’ve had to turn away an average of 30 to 40 cars a week.
In all of this coverage, one thing you won’t find is a food bank worker who is surprised by this outcome. Still, this is the opposite of what capitalist discourse in the United States would lead one to expect. In that narrative, the private sector is much better suited to feed the poor than state welfare programs could ever be. They’re more efficient, more localized, and best of all: they don’t rely on taxes. For this reason, the private sector should be more than able to pick up the slack of the government shutdown.
The Left has a lot of objections to this of course, and one of their most compelling is the capacity problem. After all, Americans already give a lot to…
Auteur: Carl Beijer
