NY soda wars & food stamps
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to bar people from using food stamps to buy soda has engendered a wide-ranging and fascinating debate that defies the usual talking points.
On one hand, public health advocates – as we’ve discussed here on the blog many times – laud the Mayor for taking steps to reduce soda consumption. Sugary soft drinks are widely considered to be a contributor to America’s obesity problem.
On the other hand, anti-hunger and low income advocates are uncomfortable with the proposal. They see any effort to force people to buy or not buy something as paternalistic.
These two camps often work together, but find themselves at odds over the proposal that’s been drawn into the national spotlight. It’s become a fascinating debate (check out the graphic in this one!). Even The Onion’s in on it.
The widely read food blog, Civil Eats, asks a thousand questions raised by the proposal. They cover everything from the rights of the individual versus the collective, the impact of U.S. farm subsidies, and the impact of the food stamp program in general. I’m especially interested in their argument that the food stamp program should be used more actively to re-engineer the U.S. food system:
Our tax dollars, especially the $80-90 billion spent annually on federal food programs, are a powerful force in shaping the food system. Food stamps, like school meals and WIC, should be the cornerstone of a food system that is grounded in principles of environmental sustainability, social justice, and health. Directed toward the small farm economy, community-oriented retailers, brokers, and processors, even a modest percentage of these funds could ignite a transformation of our food system.
It’s actually a similar argument to one about the federal school lunch program – if schools buy more locally sourced produce, it will help local farms and economies.
But in that case, it’s less controversial because we’re talking about school kids – who doesn’t want kids to eat healthy, right?
In this case, low income, free-thinking adults are the subjects of the policy. I find it hard to believe free-market, limited government thinkers would want a welfare program being used to reshape the U.S. agricultural economy.
Bloomberg’s proposal sure has has hit a nerve. And if it gets America thinking about all these issues, maybe that’s a good thing.
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It seems to me that this is a matter of degree since providing food & shelter to someone who can’t afford it is paternalistic in itself. If we as a society are paying for food for those who can’t afford their own, and I believe we should, why shouldn’t we also want to be sure the food we buy for them is nutritious? The point is to keep them well fed and healthy.
The big question in my mind is where does this end? How far do we go down the food-control road? Anything with added sugar? Anything with transfat? No snack foods? Diet beverages? Do we really want to get into a situation where one group of people is dictating what someone else can eat? Seems like a slippery slope.
I see both sides and don’t really know where I stand.
Why are we paying for any beverages for example? These are “food” programs not beverage programs. We already limit WIC to specific foods so we already do this for some programs. We already limit food programs to not include a variety of items including alcohol, isn’t that paternalistic? On the other side of the coin how much control should the government have, sometimes it seems like they really infringe on the individual liberty of people needing help?
The problem is that bad food is cheap. So for all of the talk about healthy school lunches for example, nothing is really happening on that front, school lunches in the US are still not healthy, they are not healthy in the North Country. It is still the usual chicken tenders, pizza, sugar cereal for breakfast etc. the reason is that healthy food is expensive. Take a look at your child’s lunch menu for this week.
Anyway it is interesting.
Brian, don’t welfare and other government programs and subsidies ALREADY shape the agricultural economy? Like, a lot?
And John, with our corn subsidies, with subsidies for corn syrup over, say, sugar beets, we’ve been driving the food-control road for decades now, with the benefits going to Big Ag. Most people just aren’t aware of it.
Whoops, sorry. Meant to question David on the first one, not Brian.
Huh, now that’s something to ponder on. I guess I kind of align with Mervel. If we, the taxpayers, are footing the bill then I see no problem limiting the items people can consume. After all, California just had to block their welfare recipients from using their ATM cards at casinos and on cruise ships. Is it a giant case of Big Brother sticking his nose in to the assistance receivers life? Oh yeah! But as Ben Franklin said, we shouldn’t be making those on assistance comfortable. That encourages them to stay in that position. (I’m paraphrasing).
In my mind if you apply for public assistance of any kind you should have limits on what you can purchase with taxpayer funds. Think about it- we’re the only country in the world whose poor have a weight issue!
Of course I think they should all have to pass drug tests too, just like I did, but that’s another subject.
Is soda a big part of anyone’s food budget? I would hope not.
What is food? I would guess it’s anything that has some nutritional value. Are some items more nutritious than others? Yes. So what we are talking about here is human rights. Do we have the right to decide what we eat and drink, or not?
So you say you are concerned about poor people’s weight. I’m sorry but I don’t believe you. Are you also concerned about rich people’s weight? Do you want to limit what they decide they want to eat. If that’s true, maybe you want to put everyone on food stamps and then make it impossible for anyone to purchase the food you don’t want them to eat. Maybe just make certain foods illegal? Great idea! Then we can have foot cartels selling illegal food on the street.
Am I talking nonsense? Yes but in response to the whole nonsense of healthy food.
Honestly I can see both sides of this; however the current sanctions that food stamps hold, IE: no booze, are more approiate then a ban on sweetened beverages or sweetened products. The two are quite different. Alcohol is for those who can afford it, as it should be, alcohol is a recreational substance. Will soda become a higher taxed item? If it is so bad then why only target those who require government assistance? Why not have the wealthy set an example? Why not our fearless leaders? Honestly I believe this will be a stepping stone to banning the sell of unhealthy foods. The government will start with the poor and work their way out to the rest of the population. What? Will unhealthy foods be taxed as cigarettes are? I don’t feel working on food stamp reform is the appropriate venue at this point. The government should spend it’s time fixing their last brilliant idea…. the Bailouts. Yeah give companies billions of tax payers money…. Put us all further in debt, but yeah pick on the poor people who receive food stamps because they don’t have enough bs in their lives….
Oh yeah our tax dollars pay for their food stamps… we should get to say where our tax dollars go…. We don’t have that say…. I don’t honestly care what they spend it on, not my business, they went through what ever to get them, have to look at the cashier to pay with it, get glared at by other customers, judged by all… I think that’s enough.
Mervel has it: the problem is that bad food is cheap. And that is, in large measure, a product of government policy.
People who receive assistance may be poor but not all of them are stupid. If milk costs 4 or 5 times what soda costs, your children’s bellies are better satisfied by the soda, and you have very little money to spend you’re going to buy the soda. Market theory. But it isn’t a FREE market. The government is involved in all kinds of market manipulation which rewards farmers in the mid-west far better for growing corn than it does dairy farmers in the east for making milk. Forget about vegetables.
And isn’t it a shame that we all feel entitled to look down on people who receive assistance? Most of us could probably use some education on wise shopping and good nutrition. Maybe there is a poor family out there that never buys soda or cake except for on a child’s birthday.
Judge not lest ye be judged.
I guess I may be on the other side of this issue. I am for cheaper beer and smokes.
There should be NO restrictions on what can be purchased.
Knuck- Soda isn’t cheaper than milk! That’s the point. I can buy milk for $1.99 a gallon, I can’t buy soda for that price. Milk has nutritional value, soda has…nothing? If they want sweetened flavored drinks they can whip up a batch of Kool-aide for pennies. I think that’s what the argument is about. The Gov’t is taking my money and giving it to someone else. The more of those people there are, the more of my money the Gov’t takes. What they eat and buy is none of my business, right up until you take my money out of my pocket by force and give it to them!
And while I try not to judge people solely on their financial status, I’ve seen far too many people on assistance sitting on the porch sucking on a smoke and swilling beer all day while their kids run the streets to think that “poor” automatically equals “noble”.
You don’t get to decide on what your tax dollars are spent, at least not directly. You have the opportunity to elect representatives who have a role in these determinations. Don’t get fooled into thinking that those paying taxes are a large voting bloc. The decisions will ultimately be determined by those who don’t have that much “skin in the game.”
Don’t further humiliate those less fortunate by dictating to them what they are to eat. This sounds more like the proposal to house those on the dole in prisons to teach them proper hygiene.
Food stamps should be for food. Drink water. We’ve become too lazy to add the flavor ourselves.
BTW oa, I believe we do subsidize sugar beats already. That’s why we don’t get sugar cane from Brazil. They run flex fuel cars there for $0.17 per gallon.
Sandwich,
There was a beet subsidy program decades ago, and it was tried again this decade, here:
http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=sugarbeet
But as the chart shows, they don’t do it any more.
Corn, and corn syrup, on the other hand, is king:
http://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
Anyway, lots of subsidies for corn syrup. Not much of a free market.
Ah you are correct, instead we put a tariff on sugar imports.
Bret, I don’t know where you shop but that is about the price of a half gallon around here and you can buy a 2 liter soda for 99cents or less. But more important, what is the relative cost in urban neighborhoods where most food stamp users live?
And we agree that milk is a better food but to a person who has to maximize money to a point most of us can’t understand $2 is a lot of money.