Being on public assistance shouldn't be convenient or comfortable. It shouldn't be unlimited. The purpose of a public assistance program, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, should be to provide a minimal and temporary aid; as the saying goes, a hand up, not a hand out. What's more, where food assistance is concerned, it should be limited to food of proven nutritional value. Not candy, not sugary drinks, not prepared foods.
The Trump administration has been working to reform the SNAP program along these lines. Now, a lawsuit filed against the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers the SNAP program, is challenging the new rules. The plaintiffs are demanding that they be allowed to obtain sugary drinks and candy with their benefits.
Food stamp recipients sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday to undo Trump administration efforts to prevent them from using benefits to buy products such as sugary drinks, energy drinks and candy.
In a complaint filed in the Washington, D.C. federal court, five plaintiffs said the restrictions "destabilize food access" for participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the 22 U.S. states where the department has approved so-called "food restriction" waivers.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have endorsed the waivers as part of the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) movement.
Destabilized food access, by limiting the benefits to actual food? That seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, that seems like an incredible stretch. That's a stretch on the order of trying to thread a needle by driving a 1959 Cadillac through it.
And the plaintiffs, of course, are claiming they need these products.
The plaintiffs - who live in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia - said they or family members rely on the restricted foods to manage health conditions such as diabetes and allergies, or to obtain energy boosts needed to conduct their daily lives.
They said the waivers cause confusion at the checkout line, and cause irreparable harm by forcing them to choose between spending cash on restricted items, or forgoing spending on basics such as rent and transportation.
One plaintiff, Amanda Johnson of Knoxville, Tennessee, said letting her state's waiver take effect would restrict her autistic 19-year-old daughter to only three "safe" foods and beverages - one of which is bottled water - because of a serious eating disorder.
So, she intends to address this person's serious eating disorder by feeding her junk food? Wouldn't professional help for the eating disorder be a better idea? Also, if there's an eating disorder at the heart of this, then who diagnosed it? What is the diagnosis? What, if anything, has been prescribed by way of treatment? This argument rings very hollow.
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There is no claim, no lawsuit, and no legal argument that is so frivolous that some activist judge somewhere won't take it seriously, so this may end up being a protracted case.
Look, I've been speaking and writing in favor of just this kind of food aid reform for decades. I don't think the current effort goes nearly far enough, but it's a start. And in all those years, the most common retort I've heard is the claim, "...you can't tell people what they are and are not allowed to eat."
Well, when I'm paying for it — me and the rest of the taxpaying public — I damn well can, and should. Incentives matter. That's the point. Don't like it? Get a job.
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