A fair compromise with the Obamas’ - revise SNAP to have purchase restrictions like WIC. You can get low fat milk, low fat cheese, peanut butter, beans, peas, rice - healthy, nutritious foods. Include potatoes, which WIC doesn’t cover. Exclude Little Debby, soda, the flavored sugar water kids’ drinks. And prohibit things like lobster and expensive steaks, to control the costs.
If people on food stamps could only purchase healthy foods like Michelle Obama advocates, they’d make a major dent in the obesity crisis, since the poor are the most likely to be fat. Targeting SNAP makes it a government entitlement reform and health reform, without punishing everyone else. By limiting the food choices to healthy items that need some preparation, those on welfare have a motivation to earn extra money to be able to buy those “luxuries” like sugary drinks.
The problem now is that food stamps comprise a significant percentage of retail food sales (and a LOT of high profit items) and the retailers have all lined up to lobby in favor of the gravy.