President Joe Biden hosts a White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health next Thursday. He promises to “take bold steps to end hunger,” and his summit will likely unleash a torrent of demands for new federal handouts. But neither Biden nor the attendees will admit the vast collateral damage from a 50-year-plus surge of federal food aid.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon held a summit on hunger and received glowing press coverage for proclaiming, “The moment is at hand to put an end to hunger in America itself for all time.” That year, 3 million Americans received food stamps, a burgeoning federal program that cost $228 million. Last year, 41 million people received food stamps, and the program cost $114 billion. Thanks to an array of other subsidies, the federal government is now feeding more than 100 million people.
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