When it comes to what poor people eat, Republicans love them some big government. Republicans across the country keep coming up with bills to ban people from using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to eat things that Republicans think low-income people shouldn’t eat. The latest move is in New York, where two state legislators are pretending like the poors are out buying steak and lobster all the time and that’s why they need to be reined in:
“At a time when our state and nation are struggling with an obesity epidemic, it is critically important that taxpayer funded programs help low income consumers make wise and healthy food choices,” reads a legislative memo accompanying the bill. “The purpose of SNAP is to promote good nutrition, but current rules allow the purchase of junk food and luxury items like high-end steaks and lobster.”
If you’re on a food stamp budget, you better be ready to go hungry, because you’re looking at a couple pounds of lobster as your food for an entire week.
If the law were to pass and receive federal approval, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits would cease being a valid form of payment for a variety of purchases.
Sandwiches prepared at bodegas and delis, for instance, could no longer be bought with SNAP anywhere in New York. And bottled water, seltzer, ice, honey-roasted nuts, and vegetable seeds or seedlings intended to be planted at home would all be cut off, according to a review of state sales tax rules.
Don’t have kitchen access? Too bad. No sandwiches for you. Nuts are a good source of protein and healthy fats, but don’t even think about looking for them to be sweetened rather than salty. For your own protection, of course, because obesity. Except:
SNAP families don’t actually drink more soda than rich families once you adjust the data for demographics. They eat less candy. They turn to cheaper proteins like chicken, pork, eggs, and beans, but consume just as much overall protein as richer shoppers. They are less likely to eat shellfish than either wealthy shoppers or other low-income families that haven’t enrolled in food stamps even though they could.
The next stage of the bill would go even further, hitting those steaks and lobsters and anything else dubbed a luxury item. When a similar bill was being debated in Missouri last year, Jeanine Grant Lister wrote that “Flank steak—tough, stringy and the only cut of beef I can afford—is off-limits.” But in the popular imagination, steak means filet mignon or ribeye, so screw the reality of flank steak.
The good news is that 1) this is New York and the bill is unlikely to become law, and 2) the federal government doesn’t allow states to put such limits on food stamps in place, anyway. The bad news is that Republicans are not giving up on their quest to stigmatize poor people and control their lives down to what they eat.