From the Editor: Proposed federal budget has perks and perils for St. Mary

The old saying has it that the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. St. Mary Parish can say the same about the 2018-19 federal budget proposed by the administration of President Donald J. Trump.
Do you think he’d enjoy the comparison? The president, that is?
In any case, one provision in the budget would put millions more into St. Mary. Another could take millions out.
Staff writer Zachary Fitzgerald reported on the former recently, after the Port of Morgan City board decided to spend Lundi Gras in the meeting room at port headquarters.
The board heard that the proposed budget would double the money the feds are paying now for the port’s dredging.
If the budget passes Congress as it is — a big if — the port would receive about $12.7 million a year to support its efforts to keep the Bar Channel deep enough to handle large vessels, the sort of vessels that could make this area a player in the import-export trade again. Currently, the port gets $6 million a year.
There would also be benefits for the shipbuilding industry, which employed about 900 St. Mary Parish people as of June. Also last year, an LSU study said keeping the Bar Channel maintained to 20 feet all year would have an economic impact of $137 million to $270 million.
“It’s just amazing what this may be able to do for us,” said Port Executive Director Raymond “Mac” Wade.
Equally amazing, although not as positive, would be the changes proposed for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, and even better known as food stamps for the program SNAP replaced.
Currently, SNAP benefits are determined according to household size and income, and distributed in the form of an electronic benefit transfer card, or EBT.
Recipients use the EBT as they would use a debit or credit card at the local supermarket, where some goods are SNAP-eligible, and some are not.
Most of the people who benefit from SNAP are children, so the Trump administration wants to take on a job that no sane person envies: deciding what kids will eat.
The administration proposes substituting “food packages,” whatever that means, for half the benefits received by households that get more than $90 a month in value from SNAP. NPR figures that about 80 percent of recipient households get at least that much.
The savings to the federal government would be about $13 billion a year
A spokesman with more imagination than common sense compared the food packages to Blue Apron, the trendy meal-a-month program that sends subscribers the ingredients and recipes to make dishes like Creamy Fusilli Bucati Pasta, Fettucine and Roasted Fennel, and Creamy Lumaca Rigata Pasta.
One suspects the grub that will end up in the mailboxes of St. Mary SNAP families will be more like the government cheese and rock-hard peanut butter we remember from our days in the school cafeteria.
As of July, according to the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, about 5,900 St. Mary households containing nearly 12,000 people received SNAP benefits totaling about $1.9 million a month, or an average of $322 per month per household.
Even if we agree that the Trump SNAP proposal is an earnest attempt to save money while providing the same level of nutrition — another big if — the proposal will not be without pain.
Just to be conservative, let’s assume half of $232 in monthly cash benefits (the St. Mary average less $90) will be replaced by the food packages. At 2017 enrollment levels, that amounts to $684,000 a month that won’t be spent by recipients at supermarkets and mom-and-pop groceries in this parish.
And you might think that’s OK because, after all, SNAP is supposed to feed the needy, not put money into cash registers.
But those food packages, even if they contain plainer fare than Creamy Lumaca Rigata Pasta, will require packaging, not to mention food.
Uncle Sam is going to have to pay someone to do the acquisition, preparation, wrapping, boxing and sending. Is that included in the calculated savings? It’s impossible to say at this point.
So we don’t really know if it makes sense to reinvent this particular wheel while spurning a food distribution system that, assuming you can afford to make use of it, is the envy of the world.
Bill Decker is the managing editor of The Daily Review. Reach him at bdecker@daily-review.com.