[icelancer]

>>The same argument is used in the US to thwart limitations on sugary beverage purchases and other junk food with SNAP

Those living under the poverty line don't like being hit with condescending statements coming from those who are supposedly trying to help them, either. Conservatives/Republicans at least call the poor lazy. Liberals/Democrats who want to restrict sugar/luxury items from EBT/SNAP often make ridiculous statements about "knowing better for them," which you can imagine plays real well in their population.

I've collected EBT with a family and been under the poverty line. I know very well how people think and feel about those above them. Sometimes the single father or mother of two kids who struggles with daycare and a tough job 10 hours a day with 2 hours of commute time would like to buy their kids some ice cream and "bad" food to escape from the terrible life they have, rather than eat some broccoli or toasted kale. Let's have some sympathy.

[shihching]

Paternalist liberal arguments versus beverage lobbies and PR firms will indeed ring hollow and have failed. Rather than merely advocate for curbs, and lose, I would like to see the Nestle type companies prosecuted for responsibility for the negative health outcomes, and then we adjudicate the relative responsibility of 'free' consumers purchasing products known to be toxic (as will likely be surfaced during discovery of internal lab tests alongside public health studies) compared to the selling corporations. As is, the Nestles, and their ownership entities, corner both cheap unhealthy and more costly healthier foods -- effectively playing the spread of the income and wit of their customers.

Few Republicans have the candor to accuse the poor of sloth outright, instead indirectly consigning them to the oblivion of work requirements and the cheap food products low wages can buy.

I do sympathize with the mothers I see on the L fobbing off screaming children with high fructose corn syrup -- and I seek a betterment of their condition, and my own, not by leaving them solely to their own devices, but by assigning responsibility to the more powerful actors here and seeking state restraint as the remedy with sufficient scale and force to succeed.

Advertising can conceal the entire toolbox of dissimulation, hence the coordinated efforts to undermine regulation limiting the hocking of known toxicities. The market drive to eat will find and create food within the bounds of law, as it does, to such horrifying effect in Brazil as the United States.

[yodsanklai]

> Those living under the poverty line don't like being hit with condescending statements coming from those who are supposedly trying to help them, either.

So what? leave corporations feed them with junk food and ruin their health?

When I was a kid, we drank Coke at every meal and I'm literally paying for it as an adult - and it certainly didn't make me an happier kid. I wish our government had done something to avoid the damage (whether through taxation or information).

> Sometimes the single father or mother of two kids who struggles with daycare and a tough job 10 hours a day with 2 hours of commute time would like to buy their kids some ice cream and "bad" food to escape from the terrible life they have, rather than eat some broccoli or toasted kale.

There is a middle ground between ice cream and broccoli. And believe it or not, eating healthy food would make their life much better, regardless their commute time.

[Kalium]

> So what? leave corporations feed them with junk food and ruin their health?

One possible option is to offer people information and resources to guide them towards what we might prefer. A lot of farmer's markets and groceries in my area offer a 50% discount on produce for customers paying via EBT or SNAP, for example.

[majormajor]

Yep. There's a deeply embedded mentality even amongst most social liberals in the US that poverty and moral/personal failure must go together, and thus we need to tell poor people how they're allowed to spend what little we're willing to give them. See also "but what if I give them some money and they use it to buy booze?" Heck, if I was homeless I know I'd want a drink.

But then on the flip side, we'll also spin the blame around on whoever else is available too. So maybe it's just that it's easier to blame than to fix. "Big business" got Brazil hooked on junk food -- not like good ol' America, where we got hooked on junk food back when it was still small business!

[tomcam]

> Conservatives/Republicans at least call the poor lazy

Not the ones I read. Could you cite some mainstream examples?

[spaceseaman]

Here's [1] a study from the Pew Research Center stating that 51% of Republicans believe the poor are poor due to "Lack of effort on his or her part" rather than "Circumstances beyond his or her control" (32%).

And here's some prominent Republicans saying similar things over the last couple years.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/article/2014/mar/14/cont...

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/jason-chaffetz-new-gop...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/31/th...

Typically, the point is framed as a "lack of work and effort" or a "problem with culture" rather than explicitly saying laziness is the cause of poverty. I would say the unifying thread here is that Republicans believe the poor are poor of their own volition and choices, whether that's laziness, poor decisions, or a "poor culture" (what does that even mean?).

So yes. I would say that in general, many Republicans have called the poor lazy, and while it isn't the specific verbiage they like to use in public, it is the opinion of their constituents.

[1] http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/1-23-14%20Pover...

[tomcam]

Duly upvoted. Thank you.

[hsod]

Isn't SNAP is already restricted from tons of other things?

[tyingq]

It is, but..."Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items"

Most of what's not allowed is non-food items (soap, beer, tobacco) or already prepared/hot items .

https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

There is another program that provides food for pregnant women and new mothers called WIC. That program is more restrictive...it has a short list of what you can get versus a longer list of what you can't. https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/wic-food-packages-regulatory-re...