Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on a crusade to make New York a
healthier place. Following his prohibition on smoking indoors
and at public parks and his barring of restaurants from cooking
with trans fats, the Mayor proposed restricting the use of the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as
the food stamp program, to purchases of non-sugary products.
However, USDA officials, who prefer incentive-based approaches
to reform, rejected Bloomberg’s proposed ban in 2011. Despite
disagreeing with the design of Bloomberg’s proposed measures,
many still applauded the Mayor for engaging in a much-needed,
alternative discourse on food stamps. The Politics of Food
Stamps According to former U.S. Representative from Alabama
Arthur Davis in an interview with the HPR, “If you are a member
of congress, [or] a policymaker, you deal with [the issue of
food stamps] in surprisingly narrow terms.” Davis explained that
in Congress today, food stamps are typically debated only in the
context of whether to increa