A bill introduced in the Missouri legislature would limit the types of food that recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits would be able to purchase.
House Bill 813, introduced by Republican state Rep. Rick Brattin, would prohibit a recipient of SNAP benefits to use the funds for “cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood, or steak.”
The bill would also mandate that work requirement waivers for SNAP expire.
Brattin told The Daily Signal that he introduced the bill in an effort to prevent SNAP benefits from being used to purchase foods such as crab legs, lobster and filet mignon.
His intention, he said, was to make sure that those in need have access to healthy food in a fiscally responsible way.
Brattin said that the United States is “the most obese nation on the planet,” and his bill encourages a return to “healthy basics, just like the first lady’s healthy school lunch initiative, for which she was heralded.”
Critics of the legislation say that the language is not specific enough, and could prohibit those in need from purchasing simpler foods such as canned tuna or ground beef. Some argue that restricting which types of food can be purchased with SNAP benefits stigmatizes those who need assistance.
“This is anything but an attack on the poor,” said Brattin. “It’s good government to ensure that those in need have good nutritional assistance without raking the taxpayer over the coals. This isn’t me controlling what you can do with your own money, this happens to be the taxpayers’ money.”
Brattin plans to clarify the language in the bill, and said the bill still has to undergo an “extensive” legislative process of debate and amendments.
Rachel Sheffield, a policy analyst for The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, said that work requirements are an efficient way to make sure that “assistance is going to those most in need.”
