It appears Ron Shaich CEO of Panera Bread can’t afford to eat.

Well… he can’t afford to eat one of his own company’s sandwiches. That’s because the wealthy CEO only has $4.50 in his pocket to spend on food.

Ron is partaking in something called the SNAP Challenge to raise awareness of hunger in America in general and the US Government Food Stamps program in particular. Ron has volunteered to live for a week on a Food Stamp budget.

Food Stamps, aka SNAP or The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program  provides hungry Americans about $4 per day for food. That’s enough for a Big Mac, but you can forget about the fries and a coke.

Despite that modest amount, SNAP is under attack.

A bill recently passed this week  by the House proposes to cut $40 billion dollars from the food stamp program over the next ten years.

With the Department of Labor reporting the national unemployment rate at 7.3 % this past August, why are we making massive cuts to what the White House has called  ”one of our nation’s strongest defenses against hunger and poverty”?  

Critics of Food Stamps cite “abuse of the system” as a reason to cut it down to size. 

But should some Americans risk going hungry because someone else might be abusing the system?

What we have here is a classic example of the Free Rider Problem.

Think of it something like this…You’re in the food court at the mall after you’ve finished shopping and you’re hungry…

Your’re not sure wither you want the sesame chicken or a slice of pizza. But lucky for you, there are free samples. But there’s those guys in front of you who are eating an entire meal by walking around the food court eating every single tooth-pick skewered offering proffered.

Eventually the managers of the food vendors catch on and then guess what, no more free samples.

Now no one gets the benefit of a public good because a small group of people had taken more than their fair share … 

We call em free loaders, politicians and economists call em free riders. 

Some see the free loader/rider problem as a major flaw of SNAP, others say its extent is overblown.

But it does focus attention to a central question about SNAP: When does it stop being our collective responsibility to help those who can’t help them selves? 

If this bill does get passed by the Senate (which it probably won’t) Ron sure is gunna have to build a lot more Panera Cares Cafes.