Let Them Eat Cake. Literally.

I used to believe that government benefits for food assistance should come in the form of actual, physical food rather than money, rather than the famous “food stamps” or the cards that have succeeded them. (I used to know a guy who referred to his EBT card as his “free card.”) Now the Trump administration wants to overhaul the SNAP program so that it does just that. The problem is: I no longer believe it’s a good idea. Now, this isn’t just me being contrarian, changing my position so that I don’t accidentally end up on the same side as Trump - the way I used to with my parents when I was a “rebellious” teenager. I’m pretty sure my thinking on this issue changed before Trump was even elected; it has just never really come up until now. But I suppose that doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether I actually have a decent point or not.

First, let’s be clear that this isn’t a question of whether the government should provide food assistance to its citizens or not. That’s a separate issue. All this plan does is change the form of that assistance. Nor is it guaranteed that the new plan will be cheaper than the current system. The Trump administration claims it will be, but other analysts have suggested that the money it saves by reducing benefits will be offset by increased distribution costs. It is simply more expensive and cumbersome to send boxes of cereal to a bunch of people than it is to send each of them a card with money on it.

I was disappointed to learn there was already a band out
there called Government Cheese.

But that is not my real objection to the change. My real objection has to do with the principle of freedom of choice. EBT cards allow recipients to go into a grocery store and choose for themselves which foods they want to purchase. There are some restrictions (as Eminem famously stated, “these food stamps don’t buy diapers”) but for the most part people are free to choose the products that they want. There is a sense of independence and dignity that goes along with this. And I think that anyone who believes in conservative or libertarian principles should concede that if we are going to have something like the SNAP program, then it is better to have individuals making choices than to have the government choosing for them. Government-brand cereal distributed directly to poor households sounds like something from Paul Ryan’s unfinished socialist-dystopia novel.

Of course, a system where people can choose for themselves what foods to purchase is inevitably going to lead to people making “irresponsible choices.” The guy with the “free card” seemed to use it exclusively to buy energy drinks, chips, and candy. And everyone you talk to has an example of this: the person they know, or used to know, or knew someone who knew, or happened to see one time who was using EBT (or a similar program like WIC) to buy something ridiculous and unhealthy. A welfare queen, usually. Soda instead of water; cake instead of broccoli. And that right there is the main argument against the current system of distributing SNAP benefits. Some use it to argue for greater restrictions; others, the complete elimination of the program. And some, like my past-self and the Trump administration, use the same basic reasoning to claim that we should just provide SNAP recipients with food directly.

But that’s the thing about freedom. It necessarily includes the freedom to make dumb choices as well as responsible ones. And really, who cares? I believe in something like John Stuart Mill’s “harm principle” - the only valid reason to restrict one person’s liberty is that they are doing something that harms someone else. And who is being hurt when an EBT recipient chooses to buy pizza or fried chicken instead of vegetables? No one. (Except for the person themselves, and even that is arguable.) We are bothered by the idea of it, the principle of it. But the truth is that it doesn’t actually affect me at all how someone else chooses to spend their money - regardless of where they got that money.

The usual rebuttal that would be offered here is something like: “Well, I pay taxes so it’s really my money they’re spending so it is my business.” But that’s a terrible argument for a couple of reasons. First, everyone pays taxes in some form or another. Even those who are unemployed - even children - pay taxes at the point of consumption. So it doesn’t give you any more right to speak on a subject than anyone else. (Unless we’re going to say that wealthy people have more right to speak than others, that your freedom of speech is proportional to the amount of tax you pay, and that seems like a dangerous path.)

Pictured: paid spokesmen for the insidious broccoli industry.

Second, the whole point of taxation is that it ceases to be “your” money once it is taken from you; it becomes the government’s money. Now, of course you can take the libertarian position that this constitutes theft, but again, it’s theft from everyone. And it’s used for everything. I don’t claim any right to stop the military from using “my” money to build bombs or conduct drone strikes in the Middle East. The way our system works is that I voice my opposition to those things by voting for a representative who will argue against them (assuming I can find one). Yes, it’s indirect and imperfect, but it’s the best system we have come up with so far.

Finally, the “taxpayer” argument is totally disingenuous because it doesn’t actually address how anyone is harmed by one person’s irresponsible choices. All it says is, essentially: I live in a society with this person and I am made uncomfortable by the choices that they are making. Which is the same argument that social conservatives use against homosexuality or recreational marijuana. It’s also one that could be used to argue against alcohol, tobacco, country music, or wearing Crocs. And it’s a line of thinking that is totally opposed to the principle of individual freedom. It’s “I don’t like it, therefore it shouldn’t be allowed.” It’s “your rights end where my feelings begin.” And there is nothing in the Constitution that says that individual rights cease to exist when one receives government benefits.

And, besides, in a larger sense, we all receive government benefits. We benefit from the security of having a powerful military and police force, from the convenience of well-maintained infrastructure. I’d even argue we all benefit from a greater sense of stability that comes from welfare programs like SNAP. It's really just a question of degree. But that is tangential. The point is: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are supposed to be fundamental rights, not privileges that must be earned.

Admittedly, it is true that no one makes choices in a vacuum. One’s choice to buy unhealthy foods rather than healthy ones may have some effect on others: it may lead to health problems in the future, it may make one less productive at work, it may subsidize the sugar industry. But we have got to strike a balance between the good of society and the rights of the individual. Because otherwise, all of us could be condemned. All of us make choices that could be deemed socially irresponsible. I go for long drives and burn up fossil fuel; I buy things from Walmart and Amazon; I use plastic water bottles even though I have perfectly good reusable ones.

“First they came for the welfare queens . . .”