He Said, She Said About the Proposed New York City Soft Drink Ban

Fellow PiA blogger Greg Plotkin and I have been exchanging views about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to prohibit food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy soft drinks — or as Greg says, revealing his East Coast roots, soda.

Greg launched the dialogue with a post supporting the ban. I responded by arguing that it's bad public policy. We could have gone back and forth in comments. Instead, I invited him to a friendly public exchange. We both hope you'll chime in.

G. People ask, isn't a ban on soda ineffective in improving the health of food stamp recipients? Maybe. That's why a pilot program such as Mayor Bloomberg is proposing is so necessary. Shouldn't we have at least some research to back up the claims of inefficiency or effectiveness? Either way, I think it's worth finding out just what effects such a ban would have.

K. We do, in fact, have a considerable amount of research on the effectiveness of different strategies for modifying consumer behavior. Academics have churned out books and articles. Companies that make and sell consumer products have funded vast amounts of marketing research to tell them how to impact choice.

Yet there's certainly a lot we don't know. The obesity epidemic is proof positive. I might be more in favor of Bloomberg's experiment if independent researchers had systematically tested other, less punitive strategies and found that they didn't work. Also if he'd taken account of research indicating that his ban won't.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture looked at the potential impacts of banning "empty calorie" foods about four years ago. They doubted that prohibiting them would cause food stamp recipients to switch to fruits, vegetables and the like. Consumers with a sweet tooth might just buy more cakes and cookies, they said. This has the authentic ring of human nature, I think.

I also might feel differently if I had more confidence in the assessments that New York City agencies will make. The proposal to USDA shows that they haven't come up with a sound, feasible methodology for measuring impact. As I've suggested elsewhere, Mayor Bloomberg seems to have a very personal investment in reshaping other people's diets. To me, this doesn't bode well.

Finally, I'm concerned about where the experiment could lead. To me, it's a slippery slope, ending in a conversion of the food stamp program into a broader version of WIC, i.e., a very limited list of permitted foods and beverages, with set purchase amounts for different groups. The difference is that WIC really is a supplemental nutrition assistance program. Notwithstanding its new official name, the food stamp program isn't.

G. People also ask, why ban soda when you allow the purchase of other nutrition-less food products like potato chips and candy? Well, soda isn't food. Check. Mate. It's amazing to me that anti-hunger advocates are so against a ban on soda. Shouldn't they be pleased since recipients will now be more likely to spend their benefits on, you know, food?

K. But, Greg, you know food stamps are for beverages as well as foods. If we're going to ban soft drinks because they're not food, then why not also milk and orange juice?

So far as the anti-hunger advocates are concerned, your question implies that the ban will get food stamp recipients to shift to healthful products. I've already mentioned reasons to doubt that.

However, as my initial post indicated, major anti-hunger advocates oppose the ban because it's based on faulty — and harmful — myths. The one they've cited most often is the myth that food stamp recipients don't shop as wisely as higher-income consumers. This isn't only stigmatizing. It undermines efforts to bring food stamp benefits in line with the costs of a healthful diet.

I think we've also got to be very concerned about identifying the overweight/obesity problem with the poorest sector of the population. It's not just statistically wrong. It diverts our attention from the real scope and sources of the problem, including one of the biggest and toughest to deal with — the fact that Americans simply eat too much.

G. Now, I hate to be the one to bring this up, but I think that it needs to be addressed. I think that allowing the purchase of soda with food stamps is wrong because it's a double whammy against taxpayers.

Not only are we subsidizing the purchase of a product with no nutritional value, but we are very likely footing the bill for the health care costs that recipients incur when they overindulge in "liquid candy." I would think that a lot of people eligible for food stamp benefits also are most likely eligible for Medicaid. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, Kathryn.

K. Many, though far from all people (pdf) who receive food stamps are also eligible for Medicaid. At this point, fewer than half the states provide any coverage for childless adults. Four do cover only adults who meet certain employment-related requirements. And only 10 states and the District of Columbia have income eligibility levels for parents higher than the standard maximum level for food stamps.

So, yes, our taxpayer dollars are paying the health care costs for some food stamp recipients. But we pay for higher health care costs for everyone — rich, poor and in between.

When health care costs rise, private health insurance premiums go up. If we get our health insurance through our employers, our share of the premiums may cost more. We're also likely to face bigger deductibles and/or co-pays.

Medicare costs also go up. For those of us old enough to quality (and I hope everyone reading this will be some day), this means larger deductions from our Social Security checks. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that these checks now replace, on average, 39 percent of pre-retirement wages. But they'll gradually decrease to 31 percent over the next 20 years because of rising health care costs.

So in manner of speaking, we're subsidizing everyone's unhealthful eating habits. But Mayor Bloomberg is using costs to justify an intrusive behavioral modification scheme that will affect only poor people.

G. Last point. I totally agree that incentives [like extra benefits to be used only on fruits and vegetables] are better. But at a time when budgets across the country are so tight, where would the money come from?

K. No question that budgets across the country are tight — and going to get even tighter. But the budget at issue here is the federal budget because food stamp benefits are full funded by appropriations for USDA.

We hear a lot about the deficit — how we need to cut federal spending. But we're providing tax breaks of various sorts to a wide spectrum of private-sector businesses and also to individuals who spend enough to make income tax deductions worthwhile. As I've written before, these so-called tax expenditures now cost the federal government more than $1 trillion a year.

On the direct spending side of the ledger, the Secretary of Defense himself believes that his department's budget should be reined in. One of the reasons it's so bloated is that members of Congress keep giving the department money for projects it doesn't want — and more money than it requests for some of those it does want.

These earmarks aimed at bringing pork home to the voters that elect them — and the companies that fund their campaigns —added $5 billion to last year's budget.

So we could find the money for food stamp incentives if we wanted to. What's lacking is the political will.

G&K. We agree on much more than we disagree on. We're both concerned about rising overweight and obesity rates because they're linked to serious health problems — and to rising health care costs that our economy can't sustain.

We both want low-income people to have the resources for a healthful diet and believe that the federal government should play a lead role in ensuring that they do.

So we're both very concerned that Congress will cut food stamp benefits to help "pay for" improvements in the Child Nutrition Act.

We urge you to sign the petition against this wrong-headed plan if you haven't already done so.

Photo credit: Like_the_Grand_Canyon