A Nation magazine headline howled: "The United States Is Letting Its People Starve." But the delayed payments had scant impact in part because many states offered supplemental benefits, many recipients had leftover benefits on their Electronic Benefit Cards (EBTs), and because vast numbers of food pantries and other private charities provided relief.

Democrats accused Trump of "weaponizing hunger." But the real problem is that politicians going back more than half a century have weaponized dependency to destroy limits on government power.

Most Americans support giving government assistance to people who are unable to feed themselves. But politicians profited by multiplying the number of people who relied on Washington for their next meal.

In 1969, President Richard Nixon was sharply expanding US bombing of southeast Asia. Nixon sought to bolster his humanitarian image by vastly increasing federal food handouts. He held a White House Summit and received glowing press coverage for proclaiming, "The moment is at hand to put an end to hunger in America itself for all time." That year, 3 million Americans received food stamps, a burgeoning federal program that cost $228 million. Last year, the program cost $100 billion.

Why did food stamps become so expensive?

Government surveys in the 1960s showed that most of the poor did not need federal aid to have an adequate diet. But it was politically profitable to pretend that low-income Americans were helpless by definition. To further that goal, Washington launched a war on self-reliance.

Even though food stamp enrollment quadrupled between 1968 and 1971, Congress mandated an outreach program for states to recruit more recipients. A USDA magazine reported in 1972 that food stamp workers could often overcome people's pride by saying, "'This is for your children'. . .the problem is not with welfare recipients but with low-income workers: It is this group which recoils when anything even remotely resembling welfare is suggested." The magazine triumphally announced: "With careful explanations. . .coupled with intensive outreach efforts, resistance from the 'too prouds' is bending. More and more are coming to the conclusion that taking needed assistance does not mean sacrificing dignity."