A nonprofit Michigan food-assistance helpline temporarily suspended service amid overwhelming demand, the Guardian reports.

That is the factual setup. The people answering the phones are not the punchline. They are the people doing the work. The punchline is an American safety net that apparently needs to apply for assistance itself.

Imagine a bridge inspector arriving to find volunteers holding up the bridge. He congratulates them on their civic engagement, records a reduction in government support and drives across it to the awards lunch.

We should probably ask whether the bridge is doing well before printing the commemorative tote bags.

I am tired of the idea that a public problem becomes smaller when it stops appearing on a public form. Close the counter and the queue may disappear from the lobby. It has not disappeared from the planet. It is now outside, in the rain, giving your performance dashboard an excellent quarter.

Make powerful people uncomfortable.
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The same trick would make a remarkable hospital. Discharge everyone, announce that bed occupancy has reached zero, and congratulate the chief executive for eliminating illness. The ambulance would need a press secretary rather than a driver.

A serious argument about food assistance has to ask what happened to the people, not merely what happened to the column containing their names. Some may no longer need help. Others may still need it. You cannot settle the distinction by admiring how clean the spreadsheet looks after a deletion.

Nor should volunteers be required to perform an endless national magic trick: produce help from thinner air while everyone applauds how little the trick now costs.

If Washington wants a useful performance indicator, try whether people can eat. It is old-fashioned, stubbornly physical and difficult to improve by renaming a department.

We can afford a government that asks that question. We seem to be maintaining a fairly elaborate one for avoiding it.

Source: The Guardian, October 25. The bridge inspector and hospital are satirical analogies, not reported events.