Assembly Republicans in Wisconsin plan to push a number of policies to “promote self-sufficiency” this session, including revisiting legislation proposed last year which would limit purchases of junk food for people who receive state benefits.
The Assembly GOP agenda broadly states a “significant portion of food purchased with benefits should be nutritious.” Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, said last session the bill attempted to limit junk food purchases to 33 percent of the total amount purchased with food stamps by any particular family or individual.
Some Republican lawmakers last session felt 33 percent was too large a proportion to make a difference, Murphy said.
“To me that seems like quite a bit,” he said. “I would personally like to see that restriction go a bit further if it was going to have any teeth in it.”
The same section of the agenda also includes programming Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards to automatically decline at places like casinos, liquor stores or strip clubs and requiring individuals to pass substance use tests before receiving public benefits.
All of these propositions have met resistance from a variety of interest groups. One of the most vocal has been the Wisconsin Grocer’s Association, which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported had logged the most time out of the 800 hours spent lobbying by different groups against the bill last year.
President and CEO of the Wisconsin Grocer’s Association Brandon Scholz said he opposes the bill because of the practical and monetary difficulties it would pose to the state’s grocers.
“We look at it from a process standpoint because we don’t believe we’re the judges of who can eat what,” Scholz said. “We’re hopeful that as the Legislature talks about this [bill] and looks to move forward in any way that they do, that they look at the reality part of this.”
Scholz said legislation categorizing food into “nutritious” and “not-nutritious” would require grocers to completely rewrite their software programs, potentially costing millions of dollars.
Hal Menendez, a staff attorney with Legal Action of Wisconsin, an organization that provides free legal services to low-income people, said it is futile for the state to try to make restrictions like this because foods are defined by federal law.
“There are over 300,000 food items according to the [USDA’s] Food and Nutrition Service and over 12,000 are added annually so it’s going to be difficult to monitor all of that,” he said.
Scholz said he can understand why Republican lawmakers are enthusiastic about the bill. He said he just hopes the enthusiasm does not get ahead of reality, which he felt it did last session when this issue was brought up.
Menendez said he agrees that there is a problem with people receiving public benefits buying too much junk food, but he said he thinks the solution is not limiting these purchases, rather providing more access to healthy food.
“I think it’s more important, particularly in areas that have concentrations of low-income people, for people to have access to a greater variety of foods,” Menendez said. “And it would be great if farmers’ markets were open and available at different times of day and after working hours, and I know that’s happening more and more, but not quite enough.”
