Yeah, so this is all very sad. Hungry people — lots of them, even here in funky granola Vermont. On Thanksgiving no less. Tragic. Unnecessary, of course — it’s not exactly like there’s a genuine food shortage in the US. But my local congress-critter, Peter Welch, well-meaning but too often too clueless, has to go all Big Government to pretend to solve the problem:
Welch is a co-sponsor of the Roadmap to End Global Hunger and Promote Food Security Act. The bill would create a White House Office on Global Hunger to coordinate federal food programs and would also increase U.S. investments in school programs, nutrition, and other safety net offerings.
No, Peter. Your bill is very compassionate and reads like Bono’s wet dream: Hungry kids. Global Needs. Must. Do. Something. But really, we don’t need another White House Office of anything at all. Instead, how about we ask a couple of the existing secretaries — Agriculture, and Health & Human Services — to do their jobs for a change? Cut out the pork (literally and figuratively), and then let’s stop subsidizing big agro while they profit wildly by saturating us all with cheap, unhealthy junk calories in the form of high-fructose corn syrup? Food stamps, hot lunch programs in schools — there’s a long, long list of existing options. If there’s really a need to coordinate it all better and implement the programs better, then how about we fire some people who aren’t doing it, and get the rest of them working on doing their job? More importantly, why does this have to happen at the federal level at all? If there are hungry people here in Vermont, then let’s feed them locally. Hunt some deer, then distribute the meat; contract with struggling dairy farmers to sell locally; encourage more community gardens, etc. etc. By the time random corrupt politicians from the farm belt have had their grubby little fingers in the pot, you know there’ll be nothing left to buy any vermonters a decent turkey anyway — so stop deluding yourself that your Roadmap is really going to fix it.
No, Peter: before you reach for that tired old trick of throwing more tax-payer money out the window to hire bureaucrats to try to solve a problem largely created by bad governnment in the first place, let’s think outside the Happy Meal™ box, shall we?
