John Downs, President and CEO of the National Confectioners Association, wrote a Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor objecting to Maine Governor Paul LePage’s (R) effort to get junk food off the list of foods for which Maine’s food stamps can be used.

Downs supplied a lot of numbers indicating that everyone, food stamp recipient or other, eats junk food and touting the limits of sugar in the junk food consumed.  But he missed the point.

As long as folks are going to use OPM to buy their food (and for the most part, us OP are perfectly willing to have our funds used for a hand up for those having even an extended rough patch), us OP get to say how our M will be spent in such matters.  And the fact is, food stamps should be used to buy staples only.  Everything else is a luxury, and luxuries should be outside any welfare program.

Like anyone else, of course food stamp recipients want to enjoy some of luxury, including junk food.  In that case, they should get a job so they can afford to spend their own money on their luxuries.  I sympathize with those who can’t find a job (perhaps they’ve been priced out of one by minimum wage laws), but that doesn’t legitimize luxury in a welfare program.

Downs missed the point of the proposed restriction.  But he has a vested interested in missing it.