The Trump administration wants to replace Food Stamps with Food in a Box

The proposal of Trump administration officials to replace part of the SNAP program popularly known as food stamps with boxes of home-delivered nonperishable food is certain to raise the ire of advocates for the poor. Ironically, this “Blue Apron-style program” (as Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, described it) harkens back to liberal, Depression-era relief programs that infuriated capitalists and led to the creation of the food stamp program in the first place.

In October 1933, Congress created the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation as part of the New Deal. The FSRC was charged with raising farm prices by creating artificial scarcity. FSRC agents purchased surplus crops and livestock and then distributed them to the needy through local charities—killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. In January 1934, for example, the FSRC paid $3.5 million for 234,600 hogs, which were “processed and distributed among the needy unemployed throughout the country.”

Farm prices rose. Farmers were happy.

Millions of hungry Americans were fed. They were happy.

But food retailers believed the FSRC was unfair competition. They were furious.