Stewart Whitson, a senior director on the Basis for Authorities Accountability, testified earlier than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s DOGE subcommittee in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 12. The listening to was titled “The Conflict on Waste.”
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Al Drago/Getty Pictures
PHOENIX — As an Arizona invoice to dam individuals from utilizing authorities help to purchase soda headed to the governor’s desk in April, the nation’s high well being official joined Arizona lawmakers within the state Capitol to have a good time its passage.
Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mentioned to applause that the laws was simply the beginning and that he needed to stop federal funding from paying for different unhealthy meals.
“We’re not going to try this in a single day,” Kennedy mentioned. “We will try this within the subsequent 4 years.”
These phrases of warning proved prescient when Arizona’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, vetoed the invoice every week later. However, state laws to limit what low-income individuals can purchase utilizing Supplemental Diet Help Program advantages is gaining momentum, boosted by Kennedy’s touting it as a part of his “Make America Wholesome Once more” platform. No less than 14 states have thought of payments this 12 months with related SNAP restrictions on particular unhealthy meals comparable to sweet, with Idaho and Utah passing such laws as of mid-April.
Wholesome meals itself is not largely a partisan subject, and those that research vitamin are inclined to agree that decreasing the quantity of sugary meals individuals eat is a good suggestion to keep away from well being penalties comparable to coronary heart illness. However the query over the federal government’s position in deciding who can purchase what has change into political.
The group largely behind SNAP restriction laws is the Basis for Authorities Accountability, a conservative coverage assume tank in Florida, and its affiliated lobbying arm, which has used the title Alternative Options Undertaking.
FGA has labored for greater than a decade to reshape the nation’s public help applications. That features SNAP, previously often known as meals stamps, which federal information reveals helps a mean of 42 million individuals afford meals every month. It additionally advocates for tactics to chop Medicaid, the federal-state program that connects 71 million individuals to backed well being care, together with efforts in Idaho and Montana this 12 months.
FGA’s proposals usually search to restrict who faucets into that help and the assistance they obtain. These backing the group’s mission say the purpose is to save lots of tax {dollars} and assist individuals carry themselves out of poverty. Critics argue that FGA’s proposals are a backdoor strategy to lower off help to individuals who want it and that making wholesome meals and well being care extra reasonably priced is a greater repair.
Now, FGA sees extra room for change beneath the Trump administration and the Kennedy-led well being division, calling 2025 a “window of alternative for main reform,” in line with its newest annual report.
Because the Arizona veto reveals, alternative is not a assure of success, reflecting the FGA’s historical past of coverage hits and misses.
A imaginative and prescient for limiting authorities advantages
Tarren Bragdon, a former Maine legislator, based FGA in 2011 to advertise insurance policies to “free hundreds of thousands from authorities dependency and open the doorways for them to chase their very own American Dream,” he mentioned in an announcement on FGA’s web site. The primary basis began out as a employees of three with about $60,000 within the financial institution. As of 2023, it had a funds of greater than $15 million and a workforce of roughly 64, in line with the newest accessible tax paperwork, and that is not counting the lobbying arm.
The muse obtained early funding from a grant from the State Coverage Community, which has lengthy backed right-leaning assume tanks with ties to conservative activists together with brothers Charles and David Koch.
FGA declined a number of interview requests for this text.
Lately, the nonprofit helped draft a 2017 Mississippi regulation, the Jackson Free Press discovered, which intensified eligibility checks for public help that made it harder for some candidates to qualify. It efficiently pushed a 2023 effort in Idaho to impose work necessities for meals advantages that well being care advocates mentioned led some recipients to lose entry.
The identical 12 months, the group helped cross SNAP restrictions affecting eligibility in Iowa. Since these restrictions have taken impact, the Meals Financial institution of Iowa has seen a file variety of individuals present up at its pantries amid rising grocery costs and a scaling again of COVID pandemic-era federal help, mentioned Annette Hacker, a vice chairman on the nonprofit.
A part of the group’s technique is to cross laws state by state, with the concept that the crush of latest legal guidelines will improve stress on the federal authorities. For instance, states cannot restrict what meals is bought by way of SNAP with out federal approval by way of a waiver course of. And previously, a few of FGA’s efforts have stalled as a result of states by no means obtained that approval.
U.S. Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. excursions a meals financial institution in Mesa, Ariz., on April 8, 2025. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a regulation backed by Kennedy and FGA to maintain SNAP advantages from being spent on soda.
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Ross D. Franklin/AP
Kennedy’s agenda now echoes a few of FGA’s key messages, and he has mentioned states can anticipate approval of their waivers. In the meantime, congressional leaders are eyeing nationwide Medicaid cuts and work necessities, which FGA considers amongst its main points. The muse additionally has a connection working contained in the administration: Its former coverage director, Sam Adolphsen, was tapped to advise President Donald Trump on home issues.
“We’re excited to struggle from Topeka to Washington, D.C., versus Washington, D.C., to Topeka,” Roy Lenardson, FGA’s state authorities affairs director, informed Kansas lawmakers in February when testifying in help of SNAP laws there.
Shaping state insurance policies
Within the states, FGA has change into often known as a conservative “thought chief,” mentioned Brian Colby, vice chairman of public coverage for Missouri Finances Undertaking, a progressive nonprofit that gives evaluation of state coverage points.
“Conservatives used to attempt to chop away on the federal funds,” Colby mentioned. “These guys are doing it on the state stage.”
In its 14 years, FGA has created a playbook to form state coverage discussions about public advantages behind the scenes. In Montana, retired Republican state legislator Cary Smith, who labored with FGA, mentioned not all the assume tank’s concepts break up alongside occasion strains.
“They provide a buffet of choices,” he mentioned. “Their agenda is making authorities accountable; it is within the title.”
He mentioned moreover drafting laws, FGA gives speaking factors and information to assist policymakers help their arguments.
“They might go in and would say, ‘That is what Medicaid fraud is costing us,'” Smith mentioned. “That will be the quantity you’d wish to use in your invoice.”
In January, FGA launched a memo for states to “cease taxpayer-funded junk meals.” In February, Stateline reported that Wyoming Republican state Rep. Jacob Wasserburger mentioned the group requested him to sponsor a SNAP restriction invoice. The state sponsor of comparable laws in Missouri has repeated no less than considered one of FGA’s speaking factors, as reported by the Missouri Impartial. In Arizona, Republican Rep. Leo Biasiucci, who sponsored the SNAP laws there, informed KFF Well being Information FGA was behind that invoice as effectively.
Opponents of such payments argue the proposals aren’t so simple as they sound. Amid debate on a SNAP invoice in Montana, Kiera Condon, with the Montana Meals Financial institution Community, testified that the laws would drive grocery retailer employees to type by way of what counts as soda or sweet, “which may end in retailers not taking part in SNAP in any respect.” State lawmakers tabled the Montana invoice in April.
Montana legislators additionally simply handed a invoice to increase the state’s Medicaid growth program even after FGA started publishing a sequence of papers that asserted the program was “breaking” Montana’s funds. FGA had offered information saying most Montanans on this system do not work, which state information refutes.
Ed Bolen, who leads meals help methods on the left-leaning Heart on Finances and Coverage Priorities assume tank, mentioned FGA has a sample of proposing technical adjustments to current legal guidelines and “unworkable work necessities” that trigger individuals to lose advantages.
The Kansas instance
After working with policymakers in Kansas for a decade, FGA helped cross laws that restricted how lengthy individuals can entry money help, added work necessities to SNAP, and banned the state from spending federal or state funds to advertise public help. Lots of these adjustments got here by way of 2015 laws often known as the “HOPE Act” drafted by FGA, The Washington Put up reported.
Evaluation from Kansas Appleseed, an advocacy group for low-income Kansans, discovered the SNAP caseload sharply declined after the invoice was enacted due to the brand new hurdles, dropping from 140,000 households in January 2014 to 90,000 as of January 2020.
“It is demise by a thousand cuts,” mentioned Karen Siebert, an adviser for Harvesters, a neighborhood meals financial institution community in Kansas and Missouri. “A few of these FGA proposals are such advanced insurance policies, it is arduous to argue in opposition to and to elucidate the ripple results.”
In 2024, the muse produced greater than two dozen movies that includes state politicians from throughout the nation touting the group’s objectives and dozens of analysis papers arguing public advantages are wrecking state budgets. FGA additionally has its personal polling workforce to supply information out of the states it is working to affect.
The group launched a listing of 14 states it labeled as “redder and higher” locations to exert extra affect. That included Idaho, the place the group has 4 registered lobbyists within the state Capitol.
In 2023, FGA helped current and efficiently foyer for laws there to require individuals receiving meals help to work no less than 80 hours a month. The group known as the ensuing regulation “landmark welfare reform” years within the making.
And this 12 months, Idaho lawmakers handed extra necessities for individuals enrolled in Medicaid who can work. FGA staffers labored with one of many co-sponsors of the laws on the same invoice final 12 months that failed, then once more this 12 months. A compromise invoice handed with FGA’s backing, marking one other victory for the muse.
David Lehman, a lobbyist for the Idaho Affiliation of Group Suppliers, which represents well being organizations which have opposed FGA payments, mentioned Idaho illustrates how FGA works with sympathetic lawmakers in conservative states to achieve extra floor.
“They’re pushing an already rolling rock downhill,” he mentioned.
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working applications at KFF — the impartial supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.
