Political courage is rare, and common sense now gets dismissed as a conspiracy theory. This week, however, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took a step that should have been taken decades ago. He told Big Soda: “Not on the taxpayer’s dime.”

“If you want to buy a sugary soda, the U.S. taxpayer should not pay for it,” Kennedy said, in remarks that rattled the food-industrial complex. “The U.S. taxpayer should not be paying to feed kids, the poorest kids in the country, that will give them diabetes.”

Banning soda and candy from SNAP removes the government’s role as the sugar daddy of the sugar industry.

The sugar lobby, soda executives, and professional grievance-mongers will no doubt howl, accusing Kennedy of “food policing” or “waging war on the poor.” But defending Pepsi purchases with food stamps as a civil rights cause doesn’t just miss the point — it reveals how far detached these elites are from reality.

State-subsidized sickness

“We are spending $405 million a day on” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Kennedy said. “About 10% is going to sugary drinks. If you add candies to that, it's about 13% to 17%.” That’s roughly $60 million a day funneled into sugar water and junk food — paid for by you, the taxpayer.

This is state-subsidized sickness. America’s diabetes epidemic didn’t happen by chance — it’s the inevitable result of a system that promotes poor nutrition, rewards ultra-processed junk, and ignores the long-term damage.

More than 11% of Americans now live with diabetes. It’s not just a blood sugar problem — it’s a direct path to amputations, blindness, kidney failure, and premature death.

The American Diabetes Association puts the total economic cost of diagnosed diabetes at $412 billion annually. That’s a national crisis, not a mere lifestyle choice. And the bitter irony? The same government programs paying for treatment are also funding the sugar that drives the disease.

Stop footing the bill

Kennedy’s move isn’t cruel. It’s compassionate. It’s “making America healthy again.”

The opposition is already lining up. The usual suspects will cry “nanny state,” as if forcing taxpayers to underwrite Mountain Dew is some sacred constitutional principle.

Others will insist people have the right to choose what they eat — and they do. But choosing to guzzle liquid diabetes is not the same as expecting everyone else to pick up the tab.

No one’s banning soda. Buy it. Swim in it, if you like. Just don’t expect SNAP funds — meant to keep vulnerable families from going hungry — to cover your 64-ounce daily dose of high-fructose heartbreak.

Kennedy’s proposal isn’t radical. The Women, Infants, and Children program already limits purchases to nutritionally approved foods, prioritizing health over indulgence. SNAP should follow the same logic.

Our national health model is failing. As Tim Keller, founder of U.S. Diabetes Care and a fierce critic of reactive medicine, puts it: “Western medicine is broken. Doctors treat a symptom, not a patient.”

A broken health paradigm

Keller is right. We’ve built an entire health care system on the back of symptom suppression — pills for blood pressure, injections for insulin, meds for cholesterol — while ignoring the root causes.

Instead of handing patients more prescriptions, approaches like Keller's emphasize science-backed lifestyle changes that reverse diabetes altogether. These tools don’t just manage symptoms; they seek to reverse diabetes altogether using modern tools like diabetes management apps, empowering patients with real-time data, meal tracking, and coaching.

The result is a digital frontline in the war against chronic disease. “Diabetes is not a life sentence — we’re here to prove it,” says Keller.

But all the apps, education, and healthy lifestyle coaching in the world mean nothing if we keep dumping sugar down the throats of the nation’s poorest citizens with federal blessing. You can’t cure diabetes while simultaneously funding it.

Drawing a red line

MAHA needs to draw a firm line. It can’t posture as the party of platitudes while taxpayer billions bankroll chronic disease.

The United States spends more on health care than any nation on Earth, yet it trails most developed countries on nearly every health measure. That’s no accident. It’s the inevitable result of subsidizing failure and calling it “freedom.”

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Photo by DNY59 via Getty Images

Removing soda and candy from SNAP is a simple, necessary first step to reversing this decline. It preserves personal choice while ending the federal government’s role as sugar daddy to the sugar industry.

MAHA’s moment

Conservatives should seize this moment. If we’re serious about cutting waste, improving public health, and restoring dignity to our social safety net, we should champion reforms like this — not shy away from them.

Nothing is “pro poor” about enabling chronic disease. Nothing is “compassionate” about funding metabolic illness. And nothing is “American” about trapping people in a system that feeds them into the health care meat grinder.

Let’s Make America Healthy Again. Let’s end the era of federally funded junk food. And let’s prove that health, like liberty, starts with responsibility.