One of the changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that well-meaning people on the left and not-so-well-meaning people on the right sometimes float is to make it more like the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition assistance program by prohibiting the use of SNAP benefits to buy certain unhealthy foods. There are so many problems with this. For one thing, it ignores that sometimes, unhealthy foods are the best options available, whether because people live in a food desert or don't have access to a working kitchen to cook in. For another, such proposals are basically about stigmatizing low-income people and restricting their choices.
The thing is, you don't hear Republicans talking about expanding people's options, even though there's good evidence that it works:
One USDA pilot program in Massachusetts provides a credit of 30 cents for every SNAP dollar spent on fruits and vegetables. The preliminary data shows the program resulted in a 25 percent increase in produce consumption. A similar program that doubles SNAP expenditures at farmers markets—you get $2 worth of fresh produce for every SNAP dollar you spend—has shown similar promise.
What's more, the assumption that food stamp recipients need to be told what to eat—or at least, what not to eat—comes out of the belief that they eat uniquely badly, or that they spend their government aid on unhealthy things they wouldn't otherwise buy. In fact:
A 2008 USDA report found that they are less likely than those with higher incomes to consume at least one serving of sweets or salty snacks per day. More recently, a 2015 USDA study concluded that, adjusting for demographic differences, people who take SNAP benefits don't consume any more sugary drinks than their low-income peers who aren't in the program.
But the Republicans campaigning to cut SNAP just aren't interested in a complicated reality. They're interested in cutting SNAP. In making poor and near-poor people more desperate. In stigmatizing poor and near-poor people to help create a political atmosphere to go after more cuts, affecting more people.