Critical hunger for reform

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Budget hawks are criticizing efforts to expand a welfare program that many people decline to use, even though the government has spent millions of dollars to tout its benefits.

The House voted last month to add $4 billion to the granddaddy of America's domestic nutrition programs for the poor: the Food Stamp Program.

The measure, part of the farm bill that passed by a vote of 231-191 on July 27, also would ease the program's eligibility rules and increase food stamp benefits.

Anti-hunger advocates are pleased with many of the changes to the program, which provides about $33 billion a year in assistance.

"These investments represent real progress in addressing hunger in the U.S.," the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), an anti-hunger advocacy group, said after the bill passed.

But Jeffrey M. Jones, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative-leaning think tank, said now is not the time for the government to cajole poor people into using a federal entitlement program.

"The drive to reduce entitlement spending while simultaneously expanding participation [in the Food Stamp Program] is tantamount to having two trains racing toward each other on the same track — catastrophic," Mr. Jones wrote in December.

"It's one thing to offer a program to people in need," said Chris Edwards, a tax-policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. "But I don't think we should be beating them over the head with a bat, saying you've got to take federal welfare. I mean, c'mon. My taxpayer money is being used to encourage people to cost me even more tax money? I have a problem with that."

High hassle, low value

As of 2005, 35 percent of eligible low-income households did not use food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program.