EDITORIAL: SNAP ruling shows Congress needs to weigh in
A federal court ruling involving the use of food stamps raises interesting questions about government oversight and the United States' safety net. Most importantly, it serves as another example of how Congress has abdicated its powers.
To summarize: Approximately 42 million Americans receive monthly benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, colloquially known as food stamps. That means 12 percent of the population receives money from taxpayers to help them purchase food at grocery stores.
Since last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed states to request a waiver regarding limitations on what may be purchased with those benefits. At least 20 states have been granted waivers to bar participants from using benefits to buy soft drinks, energy drinks, candy or other prepared desserts.
Now, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the Agriculture Department does not have the power to issue the waivers and failed to abide by a required notification period.
Jackson wrote: "The federal defendants and the states may have a genuine desire to improve the health of SNAP households by encouraging healthy choices at the store, and they can take lawful steps to meet those goals. But what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way."
Washington is not among the states that have received a waiver. The website of the state Department of Social and Health Services specifies that SNAP recipients may use benefits to purchase breads and cereals; fruits and vegetables; meats, fish and poultry; dairy products; and seeds and plants that produce food for the household. Benefits may not be used for alcohol, tobacco or some other products, but it does not specifically prohibit soft drinks or candy.
The basic question is whether taxpayer money should be used to purchase items that have limited nutritional value. A reasonable argument can be made that such items are frivolous luxuries; if a shopper wants to indulge, they should have to pay for such items out of their own pockets. On the other hand, should the government dictate what consumers cannot purchase, and should a parent using benefits be denied an opportunity to buy a birthday cake for a 5-year-old?
The 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act - championed by first lady Michelle Obama and signed by President Barack Obama - required healthier standards for school lunches and worked to improve nutrition education. President Donald Trump, during both his terms, has rolled back those requirements, belying the Make America Healthy Again movement that purportedly is a foundation of his administration.
But making America healthy is not the issue before the courts. Jackson was tasked with deciding whether the Department of Agriculture had overstepped its bounds. She wrote that the agency "purports to waive not just a mere administrative or technical obstacle, but the very definition of 'food' as it was laid down by Congress."
Therein lies the larger issue. The Republican-led Congress routinely has acquiesced to the authoritarian tendencies of the Trump administration - an odd subjugation for a party that likes to complain about the power wielded by "unelected bureaucrats."
The ruling, for now, answers the legal questions. But it highlights the need for Congress to debate what consumers should be allowed to purchase at the grocery store with taxpayer-funded subsidies.
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