The Wall Street Journal - Don't Gut the SNAP Program, Make It better

Op-Ed

By: John Faso

Moby's op-ed "Food Stamps Shouldn't Pay for Junk" (April 10) makes an important point that the food stamp program (SNAP) should encourage purchase of nutritious food. I plan to offer an amendment to the legislation to restrict the purchase of soda. Given the increase in obesity and diabetes, particularly among our youth, such a change is consistent with our desire to promote public health and reduce health-care costs.

However, Moby is entirely wrong when he contends that our food-stamp debate is "pitting those who want to preserve funding for SNAP against those who want to gut it."

The legislation under consideration in the House is intended to promote opportunity and self-sufficiency by moving the 3.5 million SNAP recipients who are able-bodied, aged 18-59, with no children at home, into jobs or job training. Today, there are no meaningful work requirements for this population and our legislation will provide resources to states to get these people into the workforce.

Many employers have job openings but cannot find people who are ready to work or have sufficient skills. This bill addresses this workforce shortage by tapping a large pool of people, now dependent on government aid, and gets them into jobs. The bill also allows up to $2,000 in savings and $12,000 in car value before counting those assets in SNAP eligibility determinations.

Instead of wanting to gut SNAP, we want to preserve it for those who depend on it to put food on the table. At the same time, we're going to insist that those who can work do so or lose benefits. Taxpayers deserve no less.

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