TOPEKA — Purchasing soda and candy with food stamps would no longer be permitted under a proposed Kansas bill, but whether the federal government would accept the move is unclear.
Previous efforts to request waivers from the rules of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, under which food stamps are funded and administered to states, have failed. A request from Maine in 2018 was rejected during the first Trump administration. President Donald Trump initially didn’t support it, Roy Lenardson of Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying extension of the conservative think tank Foundation for Government Accountability, told legislators Tuesday.
“I can tell you that that is changing,” he said.
Lenardson pointed to Trump health secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a vision to “make America healthy again.” Restricting soft drink and candy purchases with food stamps goes with that, he said.
Two committees in the House and Senate heard Tuesday what beverage and candy products would be considered ineligible for purchase with an electronic benefits card, or EBT, as food stamps are known in Kansas, and how grocery stores and food stamp users would be impacted.
House Bill 2015 and Senate Bill 79 would direct the secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, which administers food stamps for Kansans, to request the waiver that would allow the agency to eliminate soft drinks and candy from the list of eligible food stamps products.
“The difference is, you can go buy pop and candy,” said Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican. “You just can’t use taxpayer money to do it.”
Erickson, who introduced the bill, is chairwoman of the committee that heard the Senate bill, the newly established Senate Committee on Government Efficiency, modeled after Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and the subsequent congressional ad hoc groups.
Soft drinks that are nonalcoholic beverages containing natural or artificial sweeteners wouldn’t be allowed under the restrictions. Drinks containing milk, milk alternatives like soy or almond milk, or drinks with more than 50% vegetable or fruit juice would not qualify as soft drinks, according to the bills. Candy is characterized in the bills as any unrefrigerated, flourless “preparation of sugar, honey or other natural or artificial sweeteners in combination with chocolate, fruits, nuts or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of bars, drops or pieces.”
Under those definitions, Kit Kat and Twix, which contain flour, wouldn’t be restricted. Certain juices that contain high amounts of sugar but are more than half fruit juice by volume also wouldn’t be banned.
Lenardson said soda is the No. 1 product food stamp users purchase with their benefits. A 2016 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found no major differences in consumer behaviors between those who use food stamps and those who do not.
“Across all households, more money was spent on soft drinks than any other item,” a summary of the report said.
Households using food stamps spent one percentage point more on soft drinks than households without food stamps — 5% compared to 4%.
Households both with and without food stamps spent most on meat, poultry and seafood. Sweetened beverages were second and vegetables were the third top expenditure category for food stamp households while vegetables and high-fat dairy and cheese were second and third for households without food stamps.
“The fundamental problem for SNAP recipients and for all of us is that healthy food is more expensive,” said Karen Siebert, a lobbyist for a network of food banks that serve all 105 Kansas counties including Harvesters, Kansas Food Bank and Second Harvest Community Food Bank.
Roughly 384,000 people in Kansas are facing hunger, including 131,430 children, according to Feeding America, which tracks hunger across the United States. The hearings also raised concerns with manufacturers of high-sugar, unhealthy products along with food deserts, which the bills do not address.
