Having grown up in a working class family where money was always short and we sometimes went without, I am particularly drawn to writing about how best to help the poor. That’s why I read this column distributed to the Herald-Sun by the progressives at N.C. Policy Watch and written by Sarah Jacobson of the North Carolina Alliance for Health. Sarah laments what she sees as lack of access to healthy foods and laments as well that a legislative committee failed to live up to her expectations.
Recently, state elected official started the conversation on this issue through the work of the House Study Committee on Food Desert Zones. Unfortunately, however, with only four meetings and an incredible volume of complex information, that effort concluded with little in the way of tangible next steps and only weak legislative suggestions. We need to continue to educate our elected officials and our communities about food insecurity and the policies that can change things for the better.
The bottom line: Spirited conversation on this issue needs to continue. Let’s help that process along by letting our community and state leaders know that we care about the health of our kids and communities and that healthy food should not be a luxury.
I won’t quibble here with Sarah’s data or definition of who is food “insecure” and why, but I reject her notion that helping the vulnerable is the responsibility of a narrowly defined legislative committee. Rather than spend time rubbing our hands at committee meetings of this sort, let’s act with boldness to tangibly help lift people in these circumstances out of their problem.
We do that by enacting economic policies that we know, based on years of data, are correlated with economic growth: growth that leads to more job opportunities and easier/greater access to more and more products and services. The General Assembly is to commended for taking steps over the past three years to do just that: lowering the tax burden and reforming the tax code, paring back job-killing rules, and beginning the process of more energy production and extraction. I know from my life experience that my family’s situation improved when my father had more opportunity in the workplace. Let’s hope more legislators listen to John Hood discuss the data on which policies lead to growth, and which do not.
