Sen. Ernst on SNAP, Healthcare

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome Iowa, United States. Senator Jony Ernst back to the
program one more time before I sail off. Jony, good morning,
good to have you on.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, Gary, I hate that you are retiring, but I'm
so excited for your next chapter.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Well you're doing it too, so right the pot calling
the kettle black here? You do understand, you do understand us,
Senator Jony Ernst, that he will now be bothering you
because he figures you've got plenty of time on your hands.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yes, exactly. Well that's okay, we'll go fishing.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Or something or something. Okay, yeah, or something. I want
to get to a couple of things. Our time is
fairly short, but and I want to get the healthcare
here shortly. But you've been doing some work on food
stamps and snap benefits, and I've always wondered why it
is allowed, and I understand it is anecdotally at least

(00:57):
people are going in there with food stamps and buying
snacks and candy and stuff like that. What are the
rules and what are you trying to do about it?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, the rules have been loosened through the years, and
my latest effort is really focused on fast food. You
know what we found out is my team is digging
through all this. You know, I've been just really involved
in making sure there's not fraud, waste, and abuse, and
we have discovered a big abuse of the system. President

(01:25):
Biden used the Restaurant Meals program to let states opt
in to use their SNAP dollars for restaurants and mostly
fast food. So there were nine states that opted in
you can guess they're all blue states, and two more
that have pilot programs. And in just the last two years,

(01:47):
five hundred and twenty four million dollars was spent on
fast food, and California alone represents four hundred and seventy
five million dollars of that. So you know, we know
that the N in SNAP stands for nutrition, not nuggets,
not nuggets.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
So the thing is, I think most Americans want to
help people who actually need it, who actually need it
with nutritious food. I mean, that's kind of that's kind
of the idea to me. And it is it's tax
dollars and you go in and you buy a big mac.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I mean, come on, exactly. And that's what we're trying
to stop, is that the money that is going to
you know, Fatty foods, unhealthy foods. What we want when
we're providing tax dollars for a program for those that
are food insecure is making sure that we get the

(02:46):
most nutrient dense foods into those those families. This is
not what that program is doing. So I'm trying to
limit that, And of course, you know, I'm running into
all kinds of obstacles here with my colleagues across the aisle.
You know, we jeez as a foregone conclusion. But the

(03:08):
point is we need to start limiting where they can
use those snap dollars and for what types of food, because,
as you pointed out, there are a lot of times
they're getting away with sugary drinks and candy and things
that are not nutritious.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, it's a fat country, no doubt about it, thanks
in large part to that. But Joni Ern's the other
issue is they will tell you that the fast food
is less expensive than nutritious food, and so their justification is, yeah,
I know I shouldn't be eating a cheeseburger here, but
it's cheaper than going to whole foods.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well it's not, and we we can show and you know,
I grew up on a farm and God bless my mother.
You know, she stretched our dollars as far as she
possibly could, and she taught, you know, cooking and nutrition
through the Iowa State Extension Service, you know, to all
the other local farm wives. And it's just about being

(04:04):
better educated on the products to purchase at the grocery store,
things that are nutritious but don't cost a lot. So
I would argue that going to a grocery store, purchasing
those items and making meals for your family and you
can prep ahead, is much cheaper than going in. You've

(04:25):
seen the prices on some of these boards. When you
go into a Wendy's or a McDonald it is extremely
expensive to purchase fast food. And here when they're using
their EBT cards to do that, that's taxpayer dollars before we.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Have to run here. What are you hearing on the
floor among your colleagues now with the clock ticking and
the deadline coming on healthcare? Well, anything happening?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Oh gosh. You know, we've had many discussions surrounding this,
and we've got so many smart guys in our conference.
They are doctors, they know how they end insurance system works,
and so we do have a number of really good
Republican proposals. We will be voting on one of those today.
We want to make sure that the dollars are going

(05:11):
to individuals and not to the insurance companies. But simply,
what the Democrats are offering is a straight up three
year clean reauthorization of Obamacare, which is failing. Obamacare raised
prices for every American through that system rather than bringing
the costs down. So what we're trying to do is

(05:33):
make sure that we are actually lowering costs, making sure
that Americans are investing in the health savings accounts. And unfortunately,
I think, uh the the idea to actually bring costs down,
our Republican version will probably be blocked today by Democrats, no.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Doubt, absolutely, very mostly because Trump might support it. Sunder.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Thank you for that time, God bless you. Thanks so much.
I appreciate you.