Cato Daily Dispatch for November 14, 2001
Private Food Stamps Outpace WelfareBush Fills Up The National Tank
Airlines Ask For Government ID Cards
Private Food Stamps Outpace Welfare
Five years after the government scaled back its responsibility for the poor, more people get food from private charities over the course of the year than participate in the federal government's food stamp program, according to The New York Times. Emergency feeding sites around the country serve more than 7 million people in a given week, a new survey found, and more than 23 million people at some point in the course of a year obtain food from food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters, most of them run by religious charities. Four years ago, a similar survey found 21.4 million Americans using private food charity.
During the same time, 17.7 million people used federal food stamps, a drop from the 21.9 million who received food stamps in 1997, according to the Agriculture Department.
In "Ending Welfare As We Know It," Director of Health and Welfare Studies Michael Tanner, author of the book "The End of Welfare: Fighting Poverty in the Civil Society," argues that "it is time to recognize that welfare cannot be reformed. It should be ended." In the book "A Life of One's Own," David Kelley challenges the welfare state assumption that people have the right to food, shelter, health care, retirement income, and other goods provided by the government. He also explains that private charity is more efficient.
Bush Fills Up The National Tank
President Bush ordered the government yesterday to fill up the nation's emergency stockpile of oil, taking advantage of low prices to provide the nation with greater long-term energy security, according to The Washington Post.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said potential terrorism and the military strikes in Afghanistan were not key factors in Bush's decision.
Rather, Abraham told reporters at the White House, the stockpile of 544 million barrels is substantially lower than it was eight years ago and the administration simply wants to restore the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its 700 million-barrel capacity as a precaution.
Director of Natural Resources Studies Jerry Taylor recommends in the Cato Handbook for Congress that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve be sold and the Department of Energy abolished. He writes that "no petroleum reserve -- no matter how large -- can insulate the United States from the effects of international supply disruptions."
Airlines Ask For Government ID Cards
The nation's airlines said today that they want the federal government to issue identification cards for air travelers, according to Scripps Howard News Service.
The cards would be voluntary for U.S. citizens who want to avoid most hassles at airport screening checkpoints but mandatory for aliens living and traveling in the United States.
The Air Transport Association, the lobbying arm of the major airlines, has discussed the matter with administration officials. But White House Deputy Press Secretary Claire Buchan said, "That idea is not under consideration at this time."
Instead of providing meaningful solutions to terrorism, national ID cards will become at best an unnecessary nuisance for most citizens. In extreme cases, they could produce massive breaches of individual privacy, argues Cato scholar Adam Thierer in "National ID Cards: New Technologies, Same Bad Idea."
Cato's Tim Lynch was on CNN's Moneyline recently discussing the various proposals for a national identification card program. Video of the show is available online.