Here’s a toughie. Assume you support free-markets. That means you probably oppose government limits on what foods people can buy, such as New York Mayor Bloomberg’s so-called Big Gulp ban. A major reason for opposing such bans is that the government isn’t really capable of deciding what is healthy or unhealthy. If we ban sugary drinks, shouldn’t we also ban cholesterol-filled red meat? Vegan diets don’t have enough vitamin B-12, so maybe we should ban tofu. On the other hand, maybe Coca-Cola can escape the ban if it adds B-12 to its drinks.
The point is that free-market advocates oppose government control of what people eat because what gets labeled “healthy” or “unhealthy” will depend more on political power, fads, and urban folklore than on science and reason. Moreover, just as it is hard to end the corn ethanol program, once government labels something healthy or unhealthy, it will become very hard to change that label even if research proves it wrong.
On the other hand, the federal government gives out $75 billion a year in food stamps (technically the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” or SNAP). The National Center for Public Policy Research considers itself a free-market advocate, yet it argues that food stamps should be dedicated only to healthy foods–and that the corporations that sell unhealthy foods shouldn’t lobby to keep their products in the program.
This came up most recently at the annual shareholder’s meeting of Mondelez, the company that manufactures such healthy foods as Oreos, Cadbury chocolate bars, and Cheese Nips. At the meeting, NCPPR (the president of which owns stock in Mondelez) criticized the company for lobbying to let people use food stamps to buy all of its food products. The company responded that some of its products were healthy, so it didn’t feel bad about such lobbying.
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NCPPR has previously raised this issue at shareholders’ meetings of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Though it isn’t NCPPR’s intent, the group’s portrayal of these corporate lobbying programs as evil feeds the notion that corporations shouldn’t enjoy the same free-speech rights as real people.
“I have no problem with Americans buying as much junk food and soda as they want with their own money,” says NCPPR representative Justin Danhof. “That’s how the free market should work. SNAP funds do not operate in a free market, however. SNAP is a gift of shareholder [he means taxpayer] money, so it is appropriate for the taxpayers to place reasonable limitations to make sure that gift is being used to give folks proper nutrition.”
The problem with this reasoning is that the same objection applies to government limits on SNAP funds as to government limits on foods bought with earned dollars: the government is not capable of objectively deciding what is healthy and unhealthy for everyone. If you don’t trust the government to decide what is healthy for you, why would you trust the government to decide what is healthy for someone else?
The Antiplanner likes much of what NCPPR does, but this leaves me puzzled. It would be one thing if NCPPR were arguing that SNAP is a waste of money that should be eliminated. But its argument that government should only allow food stamps to be spent on healthy food effectively admits that NCPPR believes the government is capable of defining what is healthy. And if government can do that, why shouldn’t it extend its wisdom to everyone, instead of just SNAP recipients?
Why pass a sugar tax when you can simply get rid of the sugar subsidies. Other countries subsidize sugar, no big deal. If other countries wanna subsidize sugar using their tax payer money, it’s win win for the American consumer who buys artificially low priced sugar, talk about artificial sweetness.
We’re told that soda is bad, if not evil. It’s loaded with sugar. Sugar makes people fat. Rots their teeth. It provide only empty calories. On the other hand, fruit is good… and therefore fruit juice is good. Give the kids fruit juice instead of soda. Juice ads brag that fruit juice is the natural”drink. What the ads don’t tell you is that fruit juice contains as much sugar as Coke and Pepsi: ten teaspoons of sugar in a 12 oz. glass. Ounce per ounce, it contains more calories than soda, though it tends to be consumed in smaller servings. A cup of orange juice has 112 calories, apple juice has 114, and grape juice packs 152, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The same amount of Coke has 97 calories, and Pepsi has 100. When fructose is eaten in a piece of fruit, it enters the body slowly so the liver has time to convert it into chemical energy. But a single glass of apple juice has the fructose of six apples. What gives juice companies the nerve to say their products are better? Sure juice gives you vitamins and nutrients…..plus ten teaspoons of sugar.
Just remember,politicians are the largest hypocrites. The ones who preach environmental responsibility may have obtained their wealth from questionable industries. The lawmakers who preach chastity/waiting until marriage to have kids are often the ones who later get caught using prostitutes or cheating on their wives. Women half their age or underage. The creed may switch to junk food but the hypocrisy is still there. Mayor Bloomberg has banned trans fats, pressure companies to cut salt use, and mandated public calorie counts at restaurants, restricting soft drink size. But the harder he presses, the more he’s outed. Caught salting pizza and bagels. He drinks three or four cups of coffee a day and has smoked for years, even has his own personal salt shaker. Mike Crapo, senator caught driving under the influence despite being a Mormon where the consumption of alcohol is taboo. Al Gore lives in a home that consumes 20x more power (and arriving in a limousine rather than taking the transit he advocates other people use) than the average American while telling other American’s that they must make drastic reductions in their personal consumption for the sake of the planet.
Government’s goal is to collect on destructive behavior not help those involved with it, they tax that which they believe to be evil they subsidize that which they believe to be good; they tax smoking, drinking, gambling, they subsidize marriage, renewable energy and America’s farmers. Popular perception holds that smokers impose costs on society by consuming extra medical care at public expense. This is part of what prompted the class-action lawsuits against tobacco companies in the 1990s. Yet the evidence is that smokers pay their way, both by contributing more in excise taxes and by collecting less in services in their later years since, to put it nicely, they’re not around as long to collect. Supporters of federally funded pre-school education presumably believe that the program will be beneficial for society as a whole. If that’s the case, then the burden of funding it should not fall solely on the 19% of adults who smoke, a percentage that will only get smaller if the taxes have their desired effect. The White House’s own projections have tobacco tax revenues peaking in 2015. Sustainable funding of the program would require either a larger tax base or even higher tobacco taxes in the future. Our government rakes in billions of dollars a year taxing tobacco but they only spend a few million a year for public programs and advertisements discouraging people to smoke, only 2%. Shouldn’t they spend all of it? Of course if they did, they’d have no money next year. Just goes to show the government doesn’t really give a shit about you.
I want to see more people bid on all government services easier, including defense. But on this I’m biased because I hate seeing someone with a cart full of sugary drinks pay with the Orydum Tail card. Also it would discourage people. I mean if they can only buy whole foods, that would be interesting to the laziest folks. I can’t help but remember a friend who rented a room in a house and there was a male couch potato on welfare there. He’d buy pizzas for the week to eat. I can’t remember what, but he almost lost his benefits because he was too lazy to go to the welfare office.
I’m on the side of limiting what can be bought with a public handout.
If these are people that are really in need of assistance, why are some of them buying potato chips, ice cream and prepackaged, pre-made foods, or expensive cuts of meat etc?
When my kids were young, we have to make some real choices to make ends meet. We would buy dry beans, rice , oatmeal and other foods from 25lb bags and it really was cheap in the long run, compared to canned and boxed products in grocery stores. Opening up opportunities to buy some of the things we enjoyed to eat
Unfortunately many of the people using these programs, have no idea how to eat cheap and healthy.
My grandfather use to tell us when he was a kid, with 11 brothers and sisters, if it wasn’t for dried beans, they would have never survived. He never really went into the side affects, of 11 kids eating beans.
In my feckless youth, I had roommates who used the WIC program- a program that subsidized a short list of foods (meat, eggs, cornflakes, yogurt,milk, fruit, veggies). These were families with young kids.
I thought that WIC was rational. You got the basics. I think that rules limiting food assistance to food with nutritional value helps kids.
I think its okay to exclude candy, soda, chips from the program- science gives us some pretty clear guidelines. We do have to permit some prepared foods because, well, it’s not my place to judge the hotel maid with a child who is tired after her shift. Any diet restrictions must be applied with a
recognition that poor people aren’t stupid and we should not micro-manage.
“A major reason for opposing such bans is that the government isn’t really capable of deciding what is healthy or unhealthy.”
Not a major reason. The main argument is that people own their own bodies and should be free to put into it whatever they choose as long as they accept responsibility for their actions.
“SNAP is a gift of shareholder [he means taxpayer] money”
A gift? A gift is “a thing given willingly to someone without payment”. A tax is “a compulsory contribution to state revenue”. Pure Doublespeak.
SNAP should be abolished (along with the Dept. of Ag.) and food donations should be handled by private charity and voluntary transactions.
Our “obesity” epidemic is caused more by food stamps than anything else.
I see very few skinny, undernourished people using them at the grocery store.
Stop the handouts (or reduce them significantly) and the obesity problem will melt away, because they will not have the funds to buy all the extra unneeded food.
This is a great subject because even libertarians cringe at seeing food stamps used to buy expensive bad food. Yet having government decree what one eats is a huge imposition.
There is a counter view that people on welfare feel entitled to eat the junk food that other people ear, and the government empowers that idea by hiding the embarrassment of food stamps with euphamistic names of the programs such as Oregon Trail cards.
The fact is that many, perhaps most, but not all, food stamp users are not the poster family of a starving family trying to make it by on raw bulk foods. We all wish that was who we are helping, but it just isn’t reality.
John, part of the reason that some poor areas have high obesity rates is that exercise is not encouraged.
For instance, a poor woman in Mississippi is going to have to go to great effort to find proper sneakers and then jog. I have a gym membership, and money for yoga classes, and that helps me overcome our inherent laziness. I do support state-funded recreation centers.
I know decent people who have used food stamps. I am fine with increased enforcement- I don’t want cheats either, and I’m not naive. It would be fine with me if we gave someone a box with cheese, eggs, bread, carrots, apples, onions, tuna etc. A lot of the motivation is to help kids grow well & avoid future health problems. This can be achieved through common sense and beans and apples.
A trans fat ban? No.
A trans fat tax? Sure.
“A major reason for opposing such bans is that the government isn’t really capable of deciding what is healthy or unhealthy.”
Not a major reason. The main argument is that people own their own bodies and should be free to put into it whatever they choose as long as they accept responsibility for their actions.
“SNAP is a gift of shareholder [he means taxpayer] money”
A gift? A gift is “a thing given willingly to someone without payment”. A tax is “a compulsory contribution to state revenue”. Pure Doublespeak.
SNAP should be abolished (along with the Dept. of Ag.) and food donations should be handled by private charity and voluntary transactions.
One must consider the dearth of healthy options (provided by the free market) in low income areas. It’s easy to say SNAP recipients must buy healthier food, but many recipients might be inclined to say “where?”
Bennett,
I agree that the richer the neighborhood, the better the grocery stores.
But, in Portland, land of non-existent “food deserts”, Wal-Mart actually provides cheap food, including fruits and veggies in outer southeast (the poor part of town drained of revenue so that we could make downtown fancy). I have mixed feelings about WalMart and rarely shop there. But I have to give them credit for cheap non-fat milk, corn flakes, beans, even some fresh stuff that people can afford;
I agree. Not all SNAP recipients have a hard time finding quality food stores. Just the other day at my localstore a food stamp recipient was checking out in front of me. Almost every item was from the frozen section. They had to scrounge together some change and cash to purchase the case of cheep beer and the carton of cigarettes. A sad and frustrating moment to say the least.
On the other hand, my office used to be located in the barrio. The same grocery store company in that neighborhood had an abysmal produce selection and has 2 full soda isles. I’m not sure I have a point. I suppose I don’t believe any food stamp purchase regs will have a substantive impact on the health of the recipients. Maybe it’s an education issue. It’s surely a poverty issue. The people at my store were spending what little money they had on beer and cigarettes (actually poor people make up a disproportionate percentage of the smoking population).
Like many social programs, I believe that they have a place and help people overcome hard times. They are also abused, sometimes fraudulently, and contribute to the “nanny state” that is so lamented by conservatives.
“One must consider the dearth of healthy options (provided by the free market)”
Come on, bennett; there is no free market in food production or distribution. From Monsanto to large conglomerate grocery chains that lobby Congress for special privilege. It simply doesn’t exist. One might argue that it’s corporatism or crony capitalism—or whatever you want to label it—that is responsible for food deserts.
In Mexico, Eastern Europe, and other places with relaxed zoning laws and that aren’t as involved in the agricultural/grocery market (read: statist) there are small grocery stores and produce stands everywhere. God forbid someone in America try to set up a vegetable stand of his or her own produce close to people who need to buy them. Government shuts them down.
There is no free market.
Frank,
I completely agree with your previous post. However, I would like to know how large grocery store chains decide what products to carry in what stores? Like I referenced above, the large grocer in my neighborhood is wonderful with a great assortment of produce. The same chain in the barrio has a horrible produce selection and 2 full soda isles (my store has just the one). Was it market research? Simple supply and demand (people in the barrio aren’t buying veg)? I’m not sure we can blame Uncle Sam for that, but if you can, I’m all ears.
bennett:
Interesting question. I Googled your exact question and found an interesting publication by Virginia Tech: “How to Sell Fresh Produce to Supermarket Chains.” One excerpt may address your question:
I would guess that the customers of the barrio market simply aren’t buying much produce there. Maybe they’re growing some themselves, get it elsewhere, or just don’t consume much fresh produce.
Connecting that to gov’t action is tenuous. I don’t have the time to research how the grocery lobby influences local policy about selling produce. The grocery lobby spends millions each year though to influence policy. I can always paint a relationship between what kids are served in school (you can call it food if you want) and their habits as they grow up. There’s ne’er fresh produce to be found in most public school cafeterias. Perhaps if that situation were different, the demand for produce at the barrio supermarket would be greater.
Thoughts?
AP:Should Free-Market Advocates Support Limits on Food Stamps?
THWM: In a free market you don’t need things like food stamps or money. You see thing you want, you just take it.
Frank said: “I can always paint a relationship between what kids are served in school (you can call it food if you want) and their habits as they grow up. There’s ne’er fresh produce to be found in most public school cafeterias. Perhaps if that situation were different, the demand for produce at the barrio supermarket would be greater.”
I think you hit the nail on the head. Eating habits can be socialized into people at school and at home. Once the habits have been ingrained in the institutional/cultural memory it’s hard to reverse the course (this can be coupled with the increase of sedentary work amongst middle and working class families).
My guess was that the demand wasn’t in the barrio store for quality veg and the grocer can’t force it’s customers to be healthy. I don’t have any data to back me up (but I’m sure it exists), but there has to be a correlation between educational achievement and diet. We got to get ’em early. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.