The Hill – Good intentions, bad results: Don’t take away choices from SNAP recipients
No matter how far you fall in our country, there are trusted programs at various levels of government to help pick people back up.
That’s why the upcoming expiration of the 2018 Farm Bill, set for Sept. 30th, is drawing so much attention on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers work overtime to renew it and advance partisan changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Two particular proposals, the Healthy SNAP Act by Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.), which is a companion to Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) similarly named legislation, and the SNAP Pilot Program, threaten to erode consumer choice, burden small businesses and unnecessarily expand government intervention in the daily lives of SNAP recipients. They do little to reform the social safety net in a meaningful way, and instead focus on the micromanagement of individual diets.
Fair minds can debate, and many do, the merits of these programs that make up what we call the “safety net” — who it should serve, and how long people should be able to make use of it. Most in Washington tend to agree that these programs are necessary and that reforms of some kind are periodically required. As Congress gears up for the next Farm Bill reauthorization, proposed changes deserve scrutiny.