Remember the Republican bill that would micromanage the diets of food stamp recipients in Wisconsin and prohibit them from buying things as innocuous as dried beans and ketchup?
It turns out that bill would cost the state millions of dollars to implement according to the state's own analysts at the Department of Administration.
While exact costs are impossible to guess, the analysts wrote, “costs for Wisconsin would total several million dollars.” They base that estimate on very different SNAP programs in other states that required similar overhauls of cash registers and state computer systems. The analysis notes that the expenses would be too large for existing departmental budgets to absorb, meaning that the state would have to come up with new money for implementing the grocery store constraints at a time when the state is expecting zero revenue growth and Gov. Scott Walker (R) is proposing enormous cuts to the state budget.
The state would not save money by telling people what they can't eat. It would lose money.
Wisconsin may not be expecting any revenue growth and presidential candidate Scott Walker may be preparing to gut the University of Wisconsin, but that's the perfect time to expend resources on kicking poor people while they're already down. Just ask Governor Sam Brownback and the Kansas state legislature. They're writing the book on it.
It's a race to the bottom.