Surprisingly, I agree with some of what Paul Krugman has to say in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Free to Be Hungry" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/opinion/krugman-free-to-be-hungry.html?_r=0). Krugman writes:
"The recent growth of SNAP [the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program] has indeed been unusual, but then so have the times, in the worst possible way. The Great Recession of 2007-9 was the worst slump since the Great Depression, and the recovery that followed has been very weak. Multiple careful economic studies have shown that the economic downturn explains the great bulk of the increase in food stamp use. And while the economic news has been generally bad, one piece of good news is that food stamps have at least mitigated the hardship, keeping millions of Americans out of poverty."
Makes sense? Yes. But Krugman continues:
"Beyond that, however, you might think that ensuring adequate nutrition for children, which is a large part of what SNAP does, actually makes it less, not more likely that those children will be poor and need public assistance when they grow up. And that’s what the evidence shows."
Hold your horses, Paul. Given that food stamps can be used to purchase junk food, they cannot possibly ensure adequate nutrition for children.
Moreover, the link in the US between poverty and obesity is clear (see, for example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198075/).
I agree with Krugman that food stamps are a necessary safety-net at times like these, when the US economy remains in the doldrums. However, I also believe that various proposed laws to prevent food stamps from being used for junk food desperately need to be enacted. As reported by Yahoo! News in a September 11, 2013 article entitled "GOP bill would ban using food stamp funds on junk food" by Eric Pfeiffer (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/gop-bill-would-ban-using-food-stamp-funds-on-junk-food--215158768.html):
"Newly proposed legislation in Congress would ban recipients of food stamps from buying junk food.
The Hill reports that a bill proposed by Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., would require food stamp recipients to purchase only healthy food.
The Healthy Food Choices Act, H.R. 3073 is the latest salvo from Republican members of Congress who have criticized the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps or the Women, Infants and Children program (WIC).
. . . .
Roe’s legislation is specifically in response to a 2012 study, which showed that recipients from the food stamp fund spend approximately $2 billion a year on junk food."
Does such a ban, proposed by a . . . Republican (there, I said the nasty word), make sense? Absolutely, positively.
