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Food

Wisconsin Doesn't Want Its Food Stamp Recipients to Buy Shrimp or Drugs

Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin are pushing a pair of bills that would restrict food stamp recipients' access to "junk" foods like shellfish—that is, if they can pass the drug tests first.
Photo via Flickr user mccun

It was only last month that we reported on some specious legislation that was being pushed in the great state of Missouri, where Representative Rick Brattin urged his fellow lawmakers to restrict food stamps recipients' access to unhealthy foods like "steak" and "seafood."

"I have seen people purchasing filet mignons and crab legs with their EBT cards," Brattin said at the time, as reported by the Washington Post. The nerve! Why can't poor people have the budgetary planning sensibility of, say, Gwyneth Paltrow when they hit the supermarket?

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Oh, right. That didn't work out so well.

In any event, Brattin's proposal is still on ice. Wisconsin, however, is now pushing a bill that would ban low-income individuals who receive government assistance from buying certain "junk" or "luxury" foods. The measure—which considers crab, lobster, and other shellfish poor choices for the poor—passed in the State Assembly on Wednesday. It must pass in the Senate before being sent on for approval to Governor Scott Walker.

READ: Missouri Wants Poor People to Lay Off the Steak

According to the Journal Sentinel, the 856,000 people participating in the state's FoodShare program "would have to spend two-thirds of their benefits on produce, beef, pork, poultry, potatoes, dairy products or food available under the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program."

Hey, at least they can have steak.

But if those food stamp recipients want assistance with getting a job—you know, to get off of food stamps—they might need to jump through another hurdle: drug testing.

Two separate, Republican-sponsored bills would mandate testing for applicants to state job training programs such as Wisconsin Works. The catch-22 is that if you want food stamps and don't have children, you need to get job training.

As the Greenbay Press Gazette points out, however, the measures have received plenty of criticism. In December, a federal appeals court affirmed a ruling that a drug-testing law in Florida was unconstitutional; Georgia lawmakers stepped back from a similar bill last year, too.

Despite the pushback, Wisconsin's Assembly passed the measures this week, along with the "junk food" bill. And even if it does pass the Senate, the Washington Post notes that "because Wisconsin's food stamp program isn't actually funded by the state government, the state would need to seek a waiver from federal administrators to put the program in place." And the federal government has never granted a waiver like that before.

Even if the bills do become law, though, most people might be able to live (however uncomfortably) without the pleasures of a bong rip or a fried shrimp grilled cheese. And it could be worse: in Kansas, welfare recipients are now banned from using their assistance checks to go swimming or see movies.

A cruel, cruel summer lies ahead for them.