Infamous buffoon Maine Governor Paul LePage has addressed a letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture demanding that he be allowed to tell food stamp recipients what they can or cannot eat.
Federal laws does not allow state governments to restrict what foods recipients can purchase without a waiver from the federal government; a waiver the Department of Agriculture has denied to several states including Maine.
Because Governor LePage has not been given permission to make up his own rules, he's threatening to take his ball and go home.
The letter reads in part:
The Obama administration goes to great lengths to police the menus of K-12 cafeterias but looks the other way as billions of taxpayer dollars finance a steady diet of Mars Bars and Mountain Dew. I can think of only one reason why the federal government would refuse to eliminate junk food from the EBT menu: special interest. Only when Washington politicians stop kowtowing to powerful retail grocer and junk food manufacturing interests will Americans have a respectable food safety net.
I was thinking I haven't even seen a Mars Bar for many years and there's evidently a good reason for that. Mars Bars were discontinued in 2011.
Governor LePage is threatening to cease administration of Maine's food stamp program unless he's given permission to ban food stamp recipients from purchasing discontinued British chocolate bars that haven't been found in grocery stores since a time when LePage was a child.
It's not clear why a so-called small government conservative like Governor LePage would demand that the federal government tell people what they can or cannot eat. LePage may wish to draw a direct parallel to the regulation of school lunch menus, but there is no comparison. Ensuring that kids are provided a meal that meets a minimum level of nutritional value at public school is not the same thing as telling adults how to sustain themselves.
Moreover, it's not clear why a so-called small government conservative like Governor LePage would threaten to relinquish control of the state's food stamp program and allow the federal government to administer it. Does Governor LePage really want to give the federal government more power and more say over the affairs of Maine?
You can read the governor's full letter embedded below.