Editorial: There's no constitutional right to sodas paid for by SNAP

Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Mar 24, 2026

Published in Op Eds

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You should have to spend your own money to buy soda. Some people disagree.

This month, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That agency runs the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is often called food stamps. The goal of SNAP is to help low-income Americans purchase food.

But what food recipients purchase might surprise you. A 2016 USDA study found that soft drinks were the top item purchased by SNAP households. Those sugary drinks made up 5.4 percent of all expenditures. In non-SNAP households it was 4 percent of expenditures.

Ronald Reagan once noted, “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” How right he was.

It’s not just soda. Bag snacks, frozen handhelds, candy, ice cream, cookies and cakes were all in the top-25 most-purchased items among SNAP households.

The federal government funds the program, but individual states run it. Under the Trump administration, more than 20 states have received waivers from the USDA limiting the junk food that SNAP recipients can purchase with their benefits. Nevada is one of them. Starting in February 2028, SNAP in Nevada will no longer pay for candy and sugar-sweetened beverages.

In other states, similar restrictions have already started. This is what the National Center for Law and Economic Justice objects to. It wants to stop waivers in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia. In short, the group wants to force taxpayers to pay for someone else’s Coca-Cola and Haribo Gummy Bears.

This is absurd. Subsidized sugar isn’t a constitutional guarantee. The unalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence don’t include life, liberty and soda paid for by someone else. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t about giving people free M&Ms.

You are free to purchase unhealthy items — at your own expense. That a “nutrition assistance” program has spent decades paying for such unhealthy items is yet another example of government inefficiency. There have been efforts in Congress to specifically exclude items such as soda, candy and ice cream from SNAP, but they haven’t succeeded yet.

One of the ironies here is that leftists throughout the country have attacked soda for years. Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco and several other blue cities have a special tax on pop. In 2024, voters in Santa Cruz, California, approved a two-cents-per-ounce tax on sodas and energy drinks. These aren’t conservative jurisdictions. Far from it.

Yet, now another leftist group is suing the Trump administration to force taxpayers to pay for someone else’s soda.

There’s a difference between feeding the hungry and subsidizing someone’s sweet tooth. The Trump administration and states like Nevada are right to limit SNAP payments for such unhealthy items.