Charlie Kirk with Rand Paul: Healthy eating will curb government spending
Charlie Kirk
Audio By Carbonatix
Por Salem News Channel
Watch above as Charlie Kirk and Senator Rand Paul discuss how food stamps should be only applied for healthy foods as a way to curb obesity in the country to curb government spending on long term health care.
Transcript below:
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Kirk: We are essentially taxpayer subsidizing obesity, which then you as a doctor know is a cause set in motion where you have a cascade of interventions that are necessary, where then someone is obese, they have type 2 diabetes, they have heart conditions, that then if they are likely getting food stamps, then they're also likely on Medicaid.
Can you speak to how the welfare state creates a bigger welfare state, and how an early intervention of having healthier eating could actually prevent trillions of dollars of taxpayer money down the road?
Paul: If you actually were to take my bill, which restricts the formula to only healthy food, so the formulary for food stamps would only be healthy food, it could possibly be the most dramatic, healthful change, preventative healthful change, in the history of the country. Why do I say that? Because obesity is one of the biggest problems we have in our country, and obesity is much more common and more prevalent among the poor who rely on the government.
And so, no, I think this would be an extraordinary change. What people should also know, though, is I have approached several Democrats to cosponsor the bill, and so far, not one Democrat will get close to it, even though I'm not changing the amount of dollars. People would still get the same amount of dollars for food. They just would not be able to buy unhealthy food with it, and yet, no Democrat will cosponsor this.
I do think, though, that the presidential branch can change something like the formula even without legislation. So I think they can do this by themselves. I'll be meeting with Bobby Kennedy sometime in the next week or two to discuss his nomination, and I plan on bringing this up with him.
