One of the first acts of the Trump Administration was to decimate US foreign aid programs focused on health and nutrition. At the time, Trump apologists suggested that those funds would be better spent caring for people in need within the US. Recent news about planned social safety net and other cuts indicates that, despite that reasoning, the Trump Administration isn’t interested in helping people inside the US either. Take, for example, the USDA’s decision to cut planned purchases of food for local food banks:
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The shelves of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank will be emptier after the U.S. Department of Agriculture quietly canceled 553,000 pounds of food that was expected to help those facing food insecurity.
The food bank learned on Tuesday that it is a victim once again of funding cuts under the Trump administration. Twenty semi-truck loads of food, worth $1 million, from the Emergency Food Assistance Program have been canceled.
[…]
These cuts come on top of the recent elimination of the Local Food Purchase Assistance program earlier this month, which removed another one million pounds of food intended for Ohioans. That food would have passed through the food bank. … All of the canceled food orders were scheduled for delivery between April and July. [source]
This is precisely the type of short-sighted thinking that advocates like myself have been concerned about. One million dollars isn’t even a rounding error regarding the Federal Budget.
Supporters and apologists for the President will point out that it was a million dollars for just one city (Cleveland) and just one quarter (Q2). I agree that the total savings will be significantly higher at scale when you take in all the cities where this would happen. But even scaling the program up, chances are that it isn’t going to break into the “billions” of dollars area where things begin to have a tangible impact on the budget.
Further, we need to account for the stress that this is putting on food banks to spend time and resources trying to make up for the loss of vast amounts of food that they had planned for (combining all the cuts, Cleveland needs to make up for ~776 tons of food). That’s going to pull resources away from their distribution work. It’s going to make it harder for people dealing with food insecurity to get food. If the economy goes into recession, that will exacerbate the issue by increasing the number of households needing supplemental food.
What’s even more stupid about this policy is that it will also hurt farmers and food producers already facing challenges from Trump’s tariffs. From the above article:
Funding for the program comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation, which the USDA has used in various ways over the past decade to support farmers by purchasing additional food that is ultimately distributed to food banks across the country. […]
“These are cuts to really effective programs that not only provide healthy food to people in need but also support farmers. This is a terrible disappointment and is going to make our work significantly more difficult,” [Greater Cleveland Food Bank President and CEO Kristin Warzocha] said.
Again, in the face of an economic downturn due to a trade war they initiated, the Trump administration is cutting funding for a program that helps everyday workers impacted by said trade war AND also helps farmers affected by it too. Perhaps even worse, they are doing that while also considering another farmer bailout (just as in Trump Trade War 1):
FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Relief could be coming from the federal government to American farmers.
The White House confirms they’re looking into the possibility of bailouts if the Trump administration’s tariffs prove to be costly to American farmers.
“Well, relief is being considered. The secretary of agriculture, I know, has spoken to the president about that. And again, it’s being considered, so I would just direct you to the statement he had telling the farmers again and reiterating his support for them and that he has their backs, which he certainly does,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
This comes as the Trump Administration’s tariffs could impact farmers nationwide and here in the Central Valley.
“When it comes to tariffs, the big word is uncertainty right now, simply because California, we do rely upon exports about 40% of what we produce is actually exported,” said Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen. “But when you’re talking 400 different crops and all the different trading partners and just all this uncertainty that’s going on there, we’re not quite sure how that’s going to affect us yet there.” [source]
Just a reminder that the Farm Bailout from the last Trump administration essentially wiped out the income generated by the tariffs placed on China (which again were paid by US residents).
This is a perfect example of what happens when you decide to “move fast and break things” by empowering people who do not understand government programs’ interconnectedness and overall policy goals to make deep cuts. And again, when you “move fast and break things” with government programs, the things that get broken most often are people.
I realize that some Trump apologists might suggest that the States can make up this type of loss of Federal Funding. To that, I refer them back to the article on the Cleveland Food Bank:
The food bank, which relies heavily on federal and state funding, is now concerned about the shortfall and is urging the community to step up in response.
Meanwhile, Warzocha said they must now hope for state support, but Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget includes a significant reduction in food bank funding, cutting it from $32 million to $24.5 million— a decrease of $7.5 million.
I’ll also point out that this is a great example of a program where it makes more fiscal sense for the Federal Government to handle oversight and coordination because they can do the work at scale and staff a smaller team than having each state create its own individual teams. But that requires having the intellectual curiosity to actually think through the details of these types of challenges–something the Trump Administration and its supporters and apologists seem constitutionally incapable of doing.
Intentionally or not, the Trump Administration is setting up a series of dominos that with a right tip (i.e. a recession or stagflation) could lead to an increase in poverty and suffering that we have not seen in generations. The worst part is that said “tip” may have already happened, and we’re experiencing the calm before the real storm.
