SNAP bans on soda, candy and other foods take effect in five states Jan. 1

does the state follow you around for the shopping and criticize your potato chips and cigars?

if you're so concerned do you intend on fixing their sh*tty schools and crappy roads as well?

i invite you all to go to an inner city, where there may be no grocery store at all -- my experience one small city -- or the grocery store has a postage stamp produce section, a lot of junk, and few of the "diet" or "low sodium" versions of things you find in the suburbs.

it's like you assume everyone has endless, fully stocked suburban groceries, kroger's, whole foods, etc. my area has a generic crappy store and a walmart. you have to drive out to get decent stores.

and riffing on "drive," have you considered some poor people don't have those "car" thingies to do that? you're stuck with what's within a walk or a bus ride.

I did not say that I am concerned.

you're ridiculous. if we're decreeing they deserve top food, first, most of the suburbs doesn't actually eat that healthy. second, are you going to provide them all the necessary tools to do so? appliances? skills? grocery stores with the right items?

or is this just some shallow attempt to suggest these people live off cokes and hostess. oh, wow, we found the nutrition. you just don't like their idea of it. guess we're not doing freedom anymore, then.

the worst version of this is people on minimum wage who need this sort of assistance.

There is nothing sadder than a fat child. And almost always, they have fat parents. Kids brought up on sugary treats and processed garbage are almost doomed to a life of poor health because of the horrible choices their parents make. Maybe this won't make any difference. But why make it easier for lazy parents to go down this road?

what's amusing to me is to watch folks who backed trump at the election on how the economy wasn't working for working class white people, throw around this coded stuff against working class minorities. while not even helping the working class whites you said you'd help.

be honest, you know exactly who you are implying. it's not billybob and his cousin-wife jane who don't feed their family any better.

Not sure why you're trying to turn this into a city vs suburb thing. The percent of people on SNAP is higher in rural areas. My neighborhood in Philly has great access to food ranging from basic grocery stores and farmer's markets to good restaurants.

Do you pay for your food yourself?

most poor people "work." DO NOT imply they are lazy. it's more likely they are exhausted and depressed from trying to live off 50 cents all day while holding down 1-2 jobs.

you want these magicians to hop in the car they don't have, drive 10 miles to the grocery store with the good food, since that doesn't exist where they live, then somehow afford the quality food on food stamps. it's a nice story, do you plan on funding your dream or just making their hard existence more miserable? the fact you pay some infinitesimal portion doesn't justify you being a cruel, big state jerk about it.

this is insincere bs, since you don't seem to care whether they get screwed on various other life affecting government expenditures, such as schools.

as someone who grew up poor and ate a fair amount of junk, if you give me a decent school i can earn my way out and then afford the good food my parents couldn't.

if you don't care about their schools and such then this is really just cruel poor shaming. "haha, you bought a cupcake, give that back."

dishonest spin post. you will note he said "city vs. suburb" then offered a non sequitur rural comment. rather than realizing suburbs might be different than cities or some rural areas, he's implying it's all the same.

you have obviously never gone across the bridge into camden. go find a grocery store in camden.

I'm just trying to understand why you are painting the suburbs as the ideal. Suburbanites have very unhealthy lifestyles for the most part.

I thought bashing cities was a MAGA thing.

to underline the hypocrisy here, aren't you the same folks who just voted to end the covid era subsidies schools were using to give free breakfasts to children before school?

This is not SNAP related and I am of the belief that there should be a major overall of the program and not allow the purchases of soda and candy, or limit that in the very least.

Again, unrelated, but how does the MAHA movement and RFK Jr reconcile their beliefs with Trump's loosening of environmental laws, some of which are intended to protect the air that we breathe and the water that we drink. I would like to hear RFK opine on that. It seems that those measures run counter to the MAHA edict.

i lived in one small city where there were zero groceries in the city limits.

i lived in one major city where the local groceries had tiny postage stamps for produce areas. like maybe 2-3 of those box-carts on wheels. no diet drinks. no low sodium choices. nothing you'd see in a suburban natural foods section. plenty of faux fruit drink. plenty of chips. this is the grocery store to choose from -- not their own choices.

you are pretending they are given choices for food they are not.

you are trying to politicize stuff where there are far worse problems with food than what people can afford on SNAP.

Nope, I am not. Not sure what political identity you're trying to concoct for me, but I'm a left leaning guy living in Center City Philly...who happens to think it's ok for people to pay for their own Coke if they want it.

What are you talking about? Our taxes pay a crap ton for schools in these areas. Inner city schools spend more per student than any other schools. If they still underperform, that's a problem with the students, parents, or how the money is spent. Out of our control. But its one more thing the hard working contributing members of society fund for the lazy who refuse to work.

And to your point about lack of good groceries in these areas, maybe there would be more if the inhabitants didnt loot the places like their private piggy banks. Companies should not be forced to operate at a loss just to provide an option for unappreciative customers who would rather tear the place down than buy (not steal) healthy food.