Three GOP states pushing to ban candy and soda from SNAP
Three GOP-led states are moving to strip unhealthy items from their food stamp programs that help low-income Americans afford groceries.
Arkansas became the first state Tuesday to submit a waiver to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking for permission to change its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to ban soda and candy.
Separately, Indiana and Idaho announced their intensions to seek similar waivers.
“One-third of our state has diabetes or is pre-diabetic,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) said in a joint press conference with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. “The current system actively encourages and subsidizes unhealthy, highly processed, and addictive products.”
Sanders and Rollins portrayed the effort to change the state’s SNAP as part of a broader push to combat chronic disease in America. Eliminating unhealthy food from SNAP is a top goal of the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, led by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
USDA has refused to grant state waivers to modify SNAP in the past, but Rollins said the Trump administration........
© The Hill
