Nutrition, public health and food stamps
The facts about the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) - the one on the cutting block.
In his 1938 book, My America, Louis Adamic wrote about answering the doorbell one morning during the Great Depression to be confronted by hungry children on their way to school. A girl spoke to him:" Excuse me, Mister…but we have no eats in our house and my mother said I should take my brother before we go to school and ring a doorbell in some house…and ask you to give us something to eat."
Opponents of the SNAP program claim it suffers from problems of fraud. That is not true; the rate is low and falling. Others claim that too many are eligible for SNAP. That is the result of our current recession, which began in 2007. Some wonder what people buy with SNAP. The answer is food—but no food that will be eaten in the store and no hot food. You cannot buy alcohol or tobacco products with SNAP.
Thanks to the SNAP program, we don't have children knocking on doors on their way to school. Let's not go back to that. The public's health begins with food security.
Read more about The Public's Health.