A pair of Republican senators are taking aim at taxpayer subsidies for hyper-addictive junk food delivered to the poor under Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
Last week, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama introduced the Healthy SNAP Act, which would reform federal food stamps to prohibit items with virtually zero nutritional value, such as candy and soda.
“The fastest way to Make America Healthy Again is to encourage balanced diets and stop subsidizing unhealthy food choices,” said Lee. “The Healthy SNAP Act is a solid step forward in building a society where all families can … enjoy strength, health, and good nutrition.”
According to a recent report from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), the roughly 42 million beneficiaries of federal food stamp dollars spend the lion’s share on soda, snacks, candy, and ice cream instead of eggs, fruit, and vegetables. The federal government spent about $113 billion on the SNAP program in the fiscal year 2023, with billions going to foods paid for in the grocery store — and then in the hospital rooms where patients suffer from myriad sugar-driven chronic diseases.
In January, Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma introduced companion legislation in the House after previous efforts to reform the food stamp program failed when Democrats were in power.
“If someone wants to buy junk food on their own dime, that’s up to them,” Brecheen said. “But what we’re saying is, don’t ask the taxpayer to pay for it and then also expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the resulting health consequences.”
But while campaigns to meaningfully reform the nutrition assistance program to provide substantive nutrition have repeatedly proved unsuccessful, Republicans are now operating with a new mandate to improve the nation’s health. The secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., outlined a platform for the new administration in The Wall Street Journal weeks after he dropped out of the White House race last summer and endorsed President Donald Trump. In order to “make America healthy again,” Kennedy argued that a Trump administration would need to “stop allowing beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to use their food stamps to buy soda or processed foods.”
“Nine percent of all SNAP funding goes to sweetened drinks, according to 2011 data,” Kennedy wrote. “It’s nonsensical for U.S. taxpayers to spend tens of billions of dollars subsidizing junk that harms the health of low-income Americans.”
Though the Senate confirmed Kennedy to lead HHS and not the agency where the SNAP program is managed (the Department of Agriculture), the momentum to reinvigorate the nation’s health has spread throughout the Republican Party, with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill even forming “MAHA” caucuses in both chambers.
“The state of chronic disease in America is limiting our potential and preventing our kids from achieving their own American Dream. Unhealthy SNAP-eligible foods undoubtedly perpetuate this health crisis — and on the taxpayer dime,” Britt said upon introducing her legislation last week. “The Healthy SNAP Act is a meaningful step forward to help Make America Healthy Again. I will continue to work with HHS Secretary Kennedy, Agriculture Secretary Rollins, and the rest of President Trump’s team to accomplish this.”
While lawmakers work to reform SNAP benefits at the federal level, at least one of the states (which currently determine eligibility and benefits at the local level) has already begun to call for change. In December, Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote a letter to Trump’s nominees for HHS and USDA encouraging reform.
“Given the relationship between junk food and poor health, our federal food assistance policies are fueling obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and a wide range of chronic health conditions across America,” Sanders wrote. The governor cited data from Trump’s nominee to run the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, “and his Stanford colleagues,” who “estimated that prohibiting sugary drinks and soda from SNAP would prevent obesity in 141,000 kids and Type 2 diabetes in 240,000 adults.”
