I’ll never forget standing in line at a grocery store back when I was in my twenties and in between jobs and realizing that the girl in front of me was someone I went to high school with. She’d become a teen mom around age 16, and here she was about a decade later with four or five more kids. I watched as she filled the checkout conveyor belt with so many high-dollar items, mostly junk food aimed at children, and wondered how she could afford it all. Here I was standing in line, juggling my handful of items I needed to make tacos that night and mentally making sure I had enough cash on me to pay for it.
And that’s the problem. I was paying with cash. She paid with food stamps. (And went outside and piled all of those kids and groceries into a brand new Cadillac Escalade, but I digress.)
Well, if you live in Indiana or Arkansas, your governors just took steps to prevent that from ever happening again, at least while adults are still in charge of the country. They’ve asked the Donald Trump administration to allow them to remove junk food and beverages, like soft drinks and candy, from the list of items of foods that people can buy with food stamps.
After making a public announcement alongside United States Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Arkansas’s Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted the following on X:
Today I was the first governor to submit a waiver to the Trump administration to end taxpayer-funded candy and soft drinks in food stamps.
Taxpayers should not be subsidizing poor health on the front end and paying for it on the back end with skyrocketing healthcare costs and… pic.twitter.com/g3xgYvPGXC
— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) April 15, 2025
The New York Post reports that Arkansas says its “request is aimed at improving the health of nearly 350,000 residents who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.” It would go into effect in July 2026 and prevent people from using food stamps to buy “soda, including no- and low-calorie soda; fruit and vegetable drinks with less than 50% natural juice; unhealthy drinks; candy, including confections made with flour, like Kit Kat bars; and artificially sweetened candy. It also would allow participants to use benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken, which is excluded from the program now.”
I’m not usually a big fan of the government telling you what you can and can’t do, but I’m not a big fan of taxpayers footing the bill for others to live a charmed life either. SNAP or the food stamp program should, in my opinion, provide the very basics for nutrition. If you want more than the basics, you should have to earn it like the rest of us do. (And I realize that there are some people who are unable to earn it, but I’m not speaking to the exceptions right now, so don’t come at me.)
The lobbyists, however, do not agree, and they came out swinging against the idea.
It’s disappointing that the American Beverage Association’s leadership dragged its entire membership—and the patriotic American workers and their families they employ and represent—into direct conflict with this Administration’s priorities for American health, well-being, and… https://t.co/TuoETy7vxW
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) April 15, 2025
Meanwhile, Indiana’s Gov. Mike Braun made his announcement alongside U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mehmet Oz, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He said that “More SNAP money is spent on sugary drinks and candy than on fruits and vegetables. That changes today.”
📍Indiana is now MAHA
BREAKING: Governor Braun signs Executive Order Banning Candy and Soft Drinks from SNAPS Benefits
“More SNAP money is spent on sugary drinks and candy than on fruits and vegetables. That ends TODAY!”https://t.co/gA6vEjKvGi pic.twitter.com/ZnJf7OkoQJ
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) April 15, 2025
More states will most certainly follow, but kudos to Indiana and Arkansas for leading the way.
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