You Shouldn't Be Able to Buy Soda with Food Stamps

By Tom Laskawy
On Friday, the USDA rejected New York City's proposal to restrict the use of food stamps to buy soda. According to The New York Times, there was much rejoicing:

The decision was a victory for the soft-drink industry, which had lobbied against the proposal, and for advocates for the poor and underfed, who had argued that the government should not stigmatize them by taking away their right to shop like other consumers. The food-selling industry also contended that it would be too complicated for stores to have to program their registers differently in the city than elsewhere.

"It was a big deal not to start breaking up the programs," said Jennifer Hatcher, senior vice president for government relations at the Food Marketing Institute in Washington.

Tellingly, the New York Times article noted ...

... the thrill in the voice of Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger who cheered the federal government for "deciding not to micromanage" the lives of poor people.

"The whole attempt was misguided and unworkable," Mr. Berg said. "This proposal was based on the false assumption that poor people were somehow ignorant or culturally deficient."

There are few issues that could put the soda lobby on the same side as the coalition for the hungry. Oh, wait. The massive federal Farm Bill does that, too. 

Why We Shouldn't Cut Food Stamps to Pay for School Lunch

In the dying days of this Congress, food activists face an awful choice: Should we support the increased funding of children's school lunches, even if it means taking money from a family's food stamps? That is what's on the table in a version of the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill passed by the Senate, in which an improved school meal program will be paid for by cutting back $2 billion in funding for food stamps in 2013.

No one disputes that poor children need to be better fed, but government food stamp entitlements are the last tatters of a safety net for many millions of people. Evidence? Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that 50.2 million Americans were food insecure in 2009, a mere 1 million more than the year before. Although that's still one in six people, the figure was a victory. Given the soaring rates of poverty and unemployment in 2009, there could have been considerably more food insecure people.

When the recession started, over 10 million more people were added to the ranks of the food insecure: The number jumped from 37 million in 2007 to 49 million in 2008. One of the reasons America didn't see another 10 million food insecure people in 2009 was that the stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, boosted the amount of money that poor households received in food stamps.