Fox Business host Charles Payne told “America Reports” co-host Sandra Smith Tuesday the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps,” has been an abuser of taxpayer funds.
The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to disallow the use of food stamps to purchase sodas and other forms of so-called “junk food.” Payne told Smith that adding conditions about what could be purchased with funds from the government program was “fair.”
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“I think it is fair to say we should determine what people can buy, particularly what people buy for their kids and you know, there is a lot that comes with people who are on food stamps for a long time and a lot of it could be because of a lower education,” Payne said. And so that means also on the dietary side. My mom used to work at a convenience store, she’d tell me people come in and buy, like, honeybuns for their kids and sometimes that would be their dinner. So listen, it is taxpayer funds and ultimately we want the betterment of the country, sort of like saying ‘Hey, let’s throw a bunch of money at education but not care what students are taught.’”
“It is the same, to me it is the same sort of social responsibility and it was always sort of designed, the very first pilot program, you go back to the late 1930s, you bought surplus food with it, it was not for any kind of food out there, it was a temporary program,” Payne continued. “Almost all of them were temporary programs and when they reignited them back in 1964, you know… they wanted to exempt alcoholic beverages, imported foods, soft drinks, luxury foods, things like that. Now… you can go some places and buy an electric fan with food stamps, you know. There is a serious abuse out there.”
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sought to remove sugary drinks, including sodas, from SNAP, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“This is data we were able to collect most recently 2011 on the way these SNAP benefits are spent,” Smith said. “On junk food in particular, 9% goes to sweetened beverages like sodas, 7% to prepared desserts, speaking of honeybuns, 3.5% to salty snacks, candy 2% and sugar’s in another category.”
“That is a lot,” Payne responded. “23% on junk food that is… huge. You know, I hear people say there are deserts, food deserts in certain neighborhoods, but there wouldn’t be if people were prohibited from buying junk food, take that 23% and all they could buy was healthy things. Those same neighborhoods would attract these stores that would sell these sort of healthy things.”
Republican Gov. Patrick Morrissey of West Virginia signed legislation that would ban several artificial food dyes in the state, affecting popular products like Mountain Dew, Froot Loops cereal, M&Ms candy, Utz Cheese Balls, Skittles candy and Lucky Charms cereal, WTRF reported.
“The argument for keeping it the way it is right now is just a ridiculous argument on so many levels, so many levels, economic and health-wise,” Payne said.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
