Comment by nathan_compton
3 days ago
I'll bite. I think there is a difference between "should they" and "should they be able to."
Most liberals I know think they shouldn't but that its stupid to police this aspect of people's behavior if they are on EBT. Most liberals might even feel more comfortable regulating everyone's behavior by taxing unhealthy foods than they would just bothering poor people with it.
EBT is already money with strings attached - you can only spend it on food. I don't see narrowing the definition of "food" here to exclude soda to be a huge problem.
I don't really see the point, as a practical matter. Money being the fungible thing that it is, the only way this policy actually restricts anything is if the only money SNAP recipients ever spend on food is their SNAP benefit.
It feels much more like spite politics: We can tell these people whose morals are so bad that they need our money to survive that they cannot spend it on what we think of as junk food. That is a luxury only us hard working folk are permitted. When you are poor, you cannot suffer alone, you need to know that we are making sure you feel extra pain. Please be motivated to be better.
Given that money is fungible, SNAP could in theory be replaced by a direct cash payment with no strings attached. This would also have the benefit of reducing overhead costs.
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Easily sidestepped, however, there is a thriving economy in poor neighborhoods around converting EBT to cash.
Soda, I agree.
Chips ... I think you should probably allow parents to spend EBT to buy a bag of chips for a hungry/picky kid in a pinch.
Why shouldn't EBT money be allowed to purchase sugar free soda?
Since it has no calories, it's not "food" by even a very loose definition.
As someone who lives in a neighborhood where most tapwater is still delivered by lead service lines, I'm sympathetic to the argument that it provides hydration. I'd prefer that my tax dollars went to solving that problem more directly, however.
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RFK and his type think sugar free soda gives you cancer, or whatever.
If we want healthy food we have to regulate the food-makers. Everything else is skirting the edges of the problem. Taxes, EBT restrictions, none of that will make a dent.
Taxes like that seem all but required if you want to have a chance at a functioning single payer system. 0 chance single-payer will works with so much freedom to destroy yourself then make everyone pay for it.
You have all of that freedom in countries with single-payer but somehow they're able to make it work.
I don't see why this would be the case - it's not like the private system in the US today has different premiums based on how much junk food you eat (the closest to that I've seen is higher premiums for tobacco users).