Legislators want to regulate what you can buy with food stamps

Americans who are on the SNAP program (formerly known as "food stamps") already face limitations on their purchases. You can only buy food items, which means that if you need toilet paper, tampons, soap, or diapers, you're out of luck. And many states regulate SNAP purchases even further: for example, in Washington State you cannot use SNAP funds to buy anything that is eligible for sales tax, which rules out soda and candy.

Now legislators are pushing to make these regulations at the federal level. (It's somewhat surprising that Republicans should be so on board with this, since Republicans typically get angry and start calling "nanny state" whenever the government tries to tell people what they should and shouldn't eat. But I guess that doesn't apply to poor people? This is my "shocked" face.)

The fundamental problem is that this is a morality issue. There is no legal reason why SNAP funds shouldn't apply to a Snickers bar. But people don't want their tax money paying for poor people to eat food that they deem "unsuitable." Basically there are a lot of people in this country who won't be happy until our nation's poor is restricted to eating nothing but broccoli and quinoa. ("That'll teach 'em to be poor," says the politician.)

If you want to give people money to buy food, you should let them buy food. Whatever food they want. Would you want the government telling you what food you can buy at the store?

If politicians really want to improve the diets of poor people, then here is what they need to do: create a secondary bolt-on program which gives people added money that can only be used to purchase fresh meat, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Designate specific items that can be used for these funds, the way the WIC program specifies which milk you can buy. Then let people decide if they want to use that extra money or not. But don't touch their regular benefits.

America's poor are clinging on by their fingernails as it is. Why make things even more difficult for them?

Image courtesy Flickr/NCReedplayer