Large soda companies are worried about their futures as Republicans eye legislation to exclude sugary drinks from SNAP, also known as food stamps.
Republicans’ latest efforts to “Make America Healthy Again” have led to a growing fear among soda companies that one of their largest sources of income may soon go away.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is a government program designed to help low-income individuals afford food by supplementing household grocery budgets. It is administered through the Agriculture Department, and benefit levels are determined based on net income and household size, operating on the assumption that 30% of a household’s net income is spent on food. The program now has over 41 million recipients.
The matter came into particular focus this week when several MAGA-aligned influencers with large followings posted similar messages on X arguing that SNAP recipients should not be banned from using food stamps to purchase soda.
Nick Sortor, who has a large following on X, posted what appeared to be screenshots that showed a script from a public relations firm about messaging on the topic, which he said was sent to some of these major influencers. One such influencer, writer Eric Daugherty, later made a mea culpa on the social media site amid the backlash.
“Yeah, that was dumb of me,” he said. “Massive egg on my face. In all seriousness, it won’t happen again.”
The incident drew further attention to the SNAP program and its growth over the years, which Republicans have said has had unintended consequences.
SNAP will be a hot topic this year, given that Medicaid and SNAP could be among the programs that will likely be targeted for spending reductions to pay for a major fiscal overhaul. The concerns surrounding Medicaid and SNAP came after the GOP budget bill, which provides the framework for President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” to enact much of his agenda quickly, was passed last month that called for $880 billion in cuts from the committee that oversees Medicaid and $230 billion from the committee that oversees SNAP. Many believe that Republicans can’t make these large cuts without touching the popular programs.
Republicans plan to pass the fiscal bill in question, one that extends expiring provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and includes other Trump tax priorities, through budget reconciliation, a legislative process that allows bills to bypass the filibuster and pass with only a simple majority in the Senate.
The SNAP program has expanded from 17 million beneficiaries under former President Bill Clinton to 42 million today. Before the pandemic, the program cost $63 billion a year, and now it costs over $100 billion a year.
As Republicans continue to call for the elimination of “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the growth of the program puts it at risk of being slashed.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. spoke on reforming the program in his confirmation hearing.
“We shouldn’t be spending 10% of the SNAP program on sugared drinks, which we have a direct ability to change things there,” he said.
There are few guardrails preventing SNAP recipients from purchasing unhealthy foods using their taxpayer-funded EBT cards. Research shows food stamps are often used to buy junk food.
A 2016 study by the Department of Agriculture found that while meat, poultry, and seafood made up the highest percentage of SNAP household expenditures by volume and cost, sweetened beverages were the second largest category of purchases, making up 9.3% of total expenditures. For non-SNAP households, sweetened beverages were ranked No. 5.
Additionally, sugary drinks, desserts, salty snacks, candy, and sugar made up 23% of total expenditures for SNAP households.
However, limiting SNAP spending on those items would not be easy. It could be tricky for policymakers to decide what should be allowed and what should not. Banning certain items would also put a lot of pressure on grocery store cashiers.
Two bills introduced that were introduced in Congress began targeting these unhealthy options. Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) introduced a bill to eliminate the purchase of sugary carbonated beverages on the program. Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK) reintroduced a similar bill that excludes soft drinks, candy, ice cream, and prepared desserts from being purchased with SNAP.
“If someone wants to buy junk food on their own dime, that’s up to them,” Brecheen said in a press release. “But what we’re saying is, don’t ask the taxpayer to pay for it and then also expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the resulting health consequences.”
Both of the bills were introduced in the House Agriculture Committee, which declined to comment on the matter.
“It’s commonsense,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), a co-sponsor of Self’s bill, told the Washington Examiner. “There’s no reason that we have $36 trillion dollars in debt, and we set these aside for poor folks. There is no reason in the world that they need to be drinking soft drinks.”
Burchett said he does not know if House leadership supports these changes. He realized “the political reality of it, but we don’t have the guts to do anything about it.”
Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute said there are very few items that cannot be bought with EBT cards other than prepared hot foods and alcohol.
“You can essentially buy any food in the grocery store, candy bars, cake, chocolate bars, all subsidized by the taxpayer,” Edwards told the Washington Examiner. “I think it’s ridiculous.”
“Taxpayers are providing free chocolate bars and cake and cola to people. In my view, it’s absolutely absurd,” he said.
Edwards noted that the United States is suffering from an obesity crisis. The share of obese Americans has grown from just 15% in 1980 to over 40% today. At the same time, the share of obese children has ballooned from 5% in 1980 to over 20% now, he said.
“So there’s a crisis here, and the federal government is feeding the crisis,” Edwards said.
While those who lean left often push for higher health and diet standards, they have also worked to expand SNAP without cutting parts of the program, benefit levels, and funding or imposing higher work requirements.
House Democratic leadership plans to hold a hearing on Tuesday on the “Republican scheme to cut SNAP.” The hearing will include testimonies from people who use the program and how the cuts would affect them.
Kyle Ross, a policy analyst with the Center for American Progress, said people who are not enrolled in SNAP are still drinking soda and contributing to the country’s overall health problems.
“SNAP recipients are not the only ones drinking soda, so if the goal is to encourage healthier lifestyles for Americans, singling out lower-income families struggling to afford food is not the way to do it,” Ross said in a statement. “Families are trying to eat healthy diets, but the Trump administration is cutting programs that connect local farms with school meals.”
Shawn Fremstad, director of law and political economy at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, told the Washington Examiner that while he does think soda consumption is a problem, he thinks it should be addressed through the tax system rather than through SNAP.
He acknowledged that while soda consumption might be more of a problem among lower-income individuals rather than high-income individuals, obesity is still a problem for people in the U.S. across the board.
“So if I’m looking to design something that’s efficient and effective, I would look to the tax side rather than the benefit side,” Fremstad said. “What to do is you tax it, and so there’s a disincentive to use it instead of trying to kind of ban it for particular categories of people.”
A spokesperson for the American Beverage Association, which represents the industry and companies such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, argued that banning SNAP recipients from purchasing soda products is a solution in search of a problem.
“Americans who need help buying groceries deserve the freedom to choose foods that best meet their families’ needs,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Proposals to restrict SNAP purchases won’t make anyone healthier or save $1 in taxes, but they would create an army of government bureaucrats to designate ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods while treating Americans facing hard times like second-class citizens.”
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The spokesperson also pointed out that the rise in diet and sugar-free soda products has driven down the beverage calories per serving of soda products and argued that soda is not the driving factor causing problems with obesity.
“While adult obesity is up 37.4% since 2000, beverage calories per serving are down 42%,” the spokesperson said. “This is a result of intentional innovation by our industry to provide more choices with less sugar and clear information so families can choose what’s right for them. It’s working: nearly 60% of beverages Americans buy today have zero sugar or calories.”
