Why NYC's proposed soda ban is good for food stamp recipients

Banning soda for food stamp users is a good idea. And I write as someone who has not once, but twice, been on food stamps myself.

I write about food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), enough to know the usual rhetorical arguments used by the various concerned groups. Even when the debate enters an arena that seems extraordinarily sensible; as in last week's petition by New York City to bar SNAP recipients from purchasing soda with their federal benefits; still, the reasoning coalesces around two ideas.

George Hacker from the Center for Science in the Public Interest represents one side in the debate, telling the New York Times, " there are a great many ethical reasons to consider why one would not want to stigmatize people on food stamps."