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Arkansas One Step Closer To Taking Chips Away From Food Stamp Recipients

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The Arkansas state House of Representatives narrowly passed a measure that would ban food stamp users from purchasing certain unhealthy food items, local CBS affiliate THV 11 news reports.

Other states have attempted to pass restrictions to the food items welfare recipients receiving food stamps can purchase, but the federal government that manages the program has not allowed any states to impose the restrictions.

The Arkansas bill was approved by a 55 – 39 vote Monday, with six legislators abstaining, and now will have to be approved by the senate. If the bill is approved by the senate and ratified by the governor, Arkansas will officially request the Department of Agriculture for a waiver to list certain food items on the list of ineligible items in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps.

The bill doesn’t say exactly what foods would be banned from the food stamps program, but “chips and Cokes and candy bars” would likely be on the list of prohibited items, the bill’s sponsor, Arkansas state Rep. Mary Bentley told Arkansas Online.

Arkansas has a 34 percent obesity rate, one of the worst in the country, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. The state had nearly half a million people enrolled on food stamps last year, and distributed $648.8 million in taxpayer-funded benefits, according to USDA.

The Tennessee legislature recently gave up trying to restrict the foods welfare recipients can purchase, instead hoping that the new Trump administration will be able to change the program.

“Many states over the years have asked for a waiver to be able to make changes to the program and not one has ever been granted,” Tennessee state Rep. Sheila Butt told ABC News affiliate WATE Jan. 17 when she withdrew the proposed bill.

“There is a new administration coming in Washington on Friday and there is the real possibility that state’s rights will be recognized to run their own states, their own programs, defend their own Constitutions and spend their money without hundreds of strings attached from the federal government.”

Maine, which asked the USDA for a waiver to ban snacks and soda purchases in 2013, is still fighting with the federal agency that ostensibly seeks to encourage food stamps users to purchase healthy and nutritions food.

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