There Is No Shortage of Food in America

I never tire of breaking the news to people when this subject comes up in conversation but there is nobody starving in this country for want of access to food or access to free food in the United States.

We have plenty of food and many, many people, non-profit organizations and charities who are falling over themselves to give it away to almost anybody who shows up and wants some.

So, no, we don’t have people with an Access to Food problem in this country despite all that you might hear on radio and television "news". I see these organizations advertising on billboards and buying radio spots in their never ending search to find those elusive starving children.

What we DO HAVE in this country are too many people with a drug, alcohol, gambling and taking responsibility for their actions problems.

The problem we hear about, the “Children Starving in America” scenario that’s been fabricated to the point of believability is actually an “Allocation of Resources” problem with many parents and people in general who have a hard time getting up and going to work and like-wise getting up and going to a grocery store. Too many times these people end up in either a bar, a casino, a heroin den or a whore house. The money they SHOULD be spending on food is going somewhere else. 

The other  part of this issue is that these people don’t have a job and are most likely on some form of government assistance. Look at the EBT program. The people who are getting this assistance who are afflicted with the above mentioned vices are dealing their EBT cards for cash. These people will also sell their food stamps. Instead of having to actually GO GET A JOB, these folks have turned finding and converting public assistance benefits into cash into their "job". There have been stories published of people being pulled over in New York having EBT cards from both New York and New Jersey. We know the identity theft going on so that people with multiple identities get public assistance under several names. These are not isolated instances, this is chronic and systematic theft.

It is an open secret that the public assistance programs are overrun with grifters, drug addicts, gambling addicts and general run-of-the-mill do nothings. It is also an open secret that anybody who applies for assistance will receive it regardless of real need because a self-perpetuating welfare state will always be willing to make room for one more dependent especially when an election is coming up.

But the main point is that however well-intended this all may be, all these resources go to ANYTHING BUT food.. The resources these programs require to run with the hope that it may actually reach someone who actually really needs it is not only killing the taxpayer and the economy but also the chance for those people who really do want to earn their own way in this world of actually doing so.

So will throwing more money at this “Starving Children” problem change anything? No. It isn’t like we’re talking about Africa. They’ve been starving for decades over there despite all the food the U.S. has sent them over the last 40 years or so. The problem there is that they can’t grow enough food to feed their population between civil wars and government insurrections. This is not a problem in the U.S. We produce so much food that we not only export much of it but also give it away to nations in need.

So when I read or hear another non-profit organization pleading for money for the “Hungry Children” I just shake my head. No amount of money I or anybody else will give will make one bit of difference and who knows where the money is really going anyway. Anybody who is soliciting money in this fashion, with all the social programs hemoraging money for SSI, WIC, EBT and Food Stamps, is most likely just paying themselves or supporting somebody's political campaign. They always say more can be done and it truely just never ends.

These children, if they exist at all, won’t get fed unless their parents are provided an incentive to stay together, stay employed and stay contributing members of the American society. Right now, that is not happening and it hasn’t been happening for awhile. It’s an environmental issue and all the money you throw at it won’t result in a population without want.

These handouts are just wasteful wishful thinking designed mostly to buy votes and nobody in government seems to be concerned with the social consequences; the drugs, the crime and wasted lives.

It's time to do something different.