Hunger: local government

What can a local government do to stop local hunger? (By local, I mean state and community levels).

There are a lot of answers to that, but first we must establish that local government should have a role in stopping hunger. To do that, we must admit that government has a moral responsibility to our well-being, not just a legislated responsibility for our behavior. And I'm not going into that argument -- just accept that I'm coming from that direction.

The first thing we think of when we think about local hunger issues is food and food prices, but that's not where government comes in, at least not mainly. The only real food pricing thing local government can do is to think about taxation of food. Sales tax on food is a regressive tax; it hits much harder if you're poor and spend 50% of your income on food than if you're middle class and spend 5% of your income on food. That's simple math.

There are other ways local government can help, mostly stemming from a desire to increase the amount of money available to spend on food. Affordable housing and health care are big; between them, they cover a good chunk of the outlay of the poor. Public transportation is huge in this country; we do so love our cars and our sprawl, so only big cities and progressive (mostly liberal) towns (usually with a college) will have public transport systems. If your town has no bus system and few sidewalks and the places you work, live, and shop are miles apart, you're forced to spend large amounts of money on gas and car payments. Bus and train systems are anti-hunger measures. Finally, the best way to fight hunger is to cause economic growth leading to available jobs paying a living wage. Easier said than done, I know, but it works better than anything else.