Another Broken System

 

 

"In our land of good and plenty, some people spend their money on just buying 'Good and Plenty' candies..."

The other week I was standing in line at the grocery store waiting to have my order rung up. The woman in front of me had an interesting looking grocery cart - it was divided in two piles. When the clerk started to ring her up, she started taking out the first pile. Once it was rung up, she took out her EBT card. The clerk told her a couple of the items she bought did not qualify. No big thing - she put them back in the cart to be rung up with pile number two of "food". I use the term "food" loosely here, as not much in pile number two had any nutritional value.

When the clerk finished ringing up pile number two, the lady took out a wad of cash and paid for the rest. To many unsuspecting, tax paying citizens this might have looked like an oddity. However to the clerk ringing her up, it had become the new normal. You see, the woman buying groceries in one of the countless thousands in this state who have learned how to "game" the system.

More curious than ever on how we handle our food assistance programs, I went on the USDA website to find out more about SNAP. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The website defines it as such:

SNAP offers nutrition assistance to millions of eligible, low-income individuals and families and provides economic benefits to communities. SNAP is the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net. The Food and Nutrition Service works with State agencies, nutrition educators, and neighborhood and faith-based organizations to ensure that those eligible for nutrition assistance can make informed decisions about applying for the program and can access benefits.

Sounds good. Plus they have a picture of a young mother with kids in tow looking through fresh vegetables at the grocery store. Hawaii, I am afraid, is not like the brochure. Both my wife and I are interested in highly committed to food ministries. Nobody, in this country, or abroad should go to bed hungry. We have a long way to go. However, our SNAP Program is ripe with fraud and misuse. The system is so easy to game, one would almost have to be foolish not to try.

Another interesting point. More and more non-food stores have signs in their windows stating "EBT Cards Welcome Here". Huh? I thought the SNAP Program was to provide a domestic hunger safety net (per the USDA website).

So thinking about the woman who was ahead of me in line, are we really doing her any favors? Are we helping her kids? I have wondered which pile of food would be the one most used. As a society, we have done a very poor job with this program. We have not helped taught people how to shop to stretch their dollars, how to shop to get the best nutrition for their money, how to shop to make sure the money and month run out at the same time. We just give money away with very few strings attached. And that is why our SNAP budget in the Ag Bill is way, way out of control.

My wife and I will continue to support food ministries in the area and beyond. Once the SNAP Program totally crashes, the people that have used that program are going to need real help from honest charities.