Down in the swamps of Washington, D.C., our Congress is said to be hard at work hammering out a budget for the coming fiscal year.  With a crisis of massive deficits looming, supposedly they are going to come up with some major areas where government spending can be cut.  

One of the areas under consideration for significant cuts is the program formally known as the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” or SNAP, and informally known as “food stamps.”  According to the latest data from the Department of Agriculture, as of February 2025 the SNAP program had some 42+ million “participation persons,” with the cost of the program running at just under $8 billion per month, which is close to $100 billion per year.  

Is it possible to achieve meaningful savings in this program?  That depends on whether you think that the government’s goal should be to maximize the number of people living on handouts and in a state of dependency, or whether instead you think that the government’s goal should be to maximize the number of people living by their own resources and without dependency.  The history of the program over the past several decades would suggest that plenty of current program participants are fully capable of making it on their own.  

However, needless to say, the left-wing press has risen to the occasion to defend every last penny of current spending on the ground that any cut would constitute a cruel blow to the vulnerable.  For one example among many that are available, let me pick on my usual whipping boy, the New York Times.  The Times has a piece from Monday (May 12) with the headline and subheadline “Republicans Target Federal Anti-Hunger Program as They Prepare Trump Tax Package; Limiting funding for SNAP could help defray the costs of President Trump’s tax plans, but could result in millions of low-income families losing access to aid.”  Excerpt:

House Republicans on Monday proposed a series of sharp restrictions on the federal anti-hunger program known as food stamps, seeking to limit its funding and benefits as part of a sprawling package to advance President Trump’s tax cuts. . . .  The moves could result in potentially millions of low-income families losing access to the safety net program.