A Missouri state legislator has proposed a regulation that could make progressives’ heads explode. Two causes beloved by the liberal left are in conflict. One the one hand, nothing delights a liberal more than no strings attached money given to the “needy.” On the other hand, forcing people to eat less junk food and drink less soda pop really gets the juices going for progs, too. Luke Rosiak writes in the Washington Examiner:

Rick Brattin has sponsored legislation that would ban using taxpayer dollars to buy "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak." The current system allows the funds to spent on anything with a nutrition label.

The sensitivity of this issue is indicated by this little side note:

The Agriculture Department has refused to release data from bar codes showing how many times each type of product is bought with SNAP cards.

It would be interesting to know how much of our taxpayer money is spent on junk food, or, on the other end of the scale, luxury foods. I have personally witnessed a food stamp user (back in the days when they had to use coupons, not the credit-card like payment system used today) purchase a whole bunch of luxury food at the Safeway checkout counter, while I carefully used coupons to save a few pennies on sale items. I followed her out of the store and watched her drive away in a late model BMW, by the way.  That’s not an image you ever forget. She was also wearing some very fancy dashiki clothing.

In my view, progs only want to bully people who are taxpayers, rather than tax recipients. So I am guessing they will fight this tooth and nail.