International Business Times reports that a federal judge in Washington blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to let five states, including Colorado, restrict SNAP recipients from using benefits to buy soda, candy, and other foods deemed unhealthy. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled that the Agriculture Department exceeded its authority by approving the state waivers and failed to follow its own required process for pilots with significant public impact.
Take this one through the kitchen table, not the courtroom marble. Conservatives can believe taxpayer-funded food assistance should not be a taxpayer-funded soda aisle, and still believe government has to follow the law when it changes the rules. Both things are true, no matter how badly the professional screamers want everyone to pick one bumper sticker and start yelling.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia had pilot waivers approved to restrict SNAP purchases of soda, candy, energy drinks, confectionery, and some desserts. In normal-person English: states wanted to test whether food assistance should actually buy food instead of diabetes in a bottle.
- Judge Jackson said USDA went beyond its authority by treating the waivers like permission to rewrite what counts as “food” under SNAP, when Congress had already defined that term. Translation: good policy instincts do not magically create legal authority.
- The court also said USDA failed to follow its own rule requiring Federal Register notice 30 days before a pilot starts when it is likely to have significant public impact. Apparently, “because we like the idea” is still not a section of the Code of Federal Regulations.
- The judge made clear she was not ruling on whether the pilots were good policy. She said the government may have a genuine desire to improve SNAP household health, but it cannot violate the law and its own regulations along the way. That is the rule-of-law part, and conservatives should not pretend it stops mattering when the policy goal sounds right.
- SNAP recipients and advocates argued shifting state-by-state lists could create confusion at checkout and embarrassment for families whose cards were declined. That concern is not fake. A grocery line is already stressful enough without turning every bottle and box into a federal guessing game.
My Bottom Line
Taxpayers are allowed to ask why public benefits can buy soda and candy. That is not poor-bashing. That is called having eyes, grocery receipts, and a basic understanding that public money should come with public responsibility.
SNAP is supposed to help people eat. It is not supposed to make taxpayers underwrite the junk-food aisle while families everywhere else are trying to stretch a grocery budget that looks like it got mugged behind the store. Obesity, diabetes, bad nutrition, and food insecurity are all real problems. Pretending they are unrelated because the politics are uncomfortable is not compassion. It is cowardice in a cardigan.
But process matters too.
If Washington wants healthier SNAP policy, then Congress and USDA need to do the work cleanly, legally, and honestly. Clarify the law. Build a workable system. Avoid state-by-state checkout chaos. Protect dignity. Respect taxpayers. Do not slap a “pilot program” sticker on a policy change and hope nobody reads the manual.
Regular families understand this better than Washington does. Common sense matters. So does lawful authority. If we throw out the law whenever we like the goal, then every administration gets to play Calvinball with the grocery cart. That is not reform. That is government by vibes with a shopping list.
Colorado should keep asking hard questions about health, poverty, and taxpayer dollars. But the answer has to be responsibility with dignity, not courtroom shortcuts, bureaucratic improvisation, or another round of federal “trust us” from people who somehow make common sense need a 47-page waiver and a judge in a robe.
Source: International Business Times
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