Ernst Unveils 'McSCUSE ME Act' to Stop $250M in SNAP Spending at Fast-Food Chains

Townhall.com ^ | November 20, 2025 5:01 PM | Scott McClallen

[E. Pluribus Unum]

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers reform to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps feed 42 million people, one lawmaker is pushing legislation aimed at curbing the program’s use at fast-food restaurants nationwide.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-IA, cited new data from the USDA that exposes how blue states have abused the SNAP program to spend $250 million per year on fast food through the 1977 exception to the “hot food” restriction through the Restaurant Meals Program.

While SNAP's original intent was to provide food-insecure families basic staples, like meat, fruits, and vegetables, loopholes created by Congress in 1977 for “hot food” have been exploited by nine states to provide a nearly $250 million/year handout to fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Burger King, and Jack In the Box. California accounts for more than 90% of this spending. In recent years, the program has ballooned at an alarming rate, particularly in California, where state officials and the Biden-controlled USDA authorized more than 5,800 restaurants to accept SNAP benefits.

Over time, eligibility was expanded to include disabled and elderly individuals, along with their spouses. The change aimed to serve homeless people who don’t have kitchens or refrigerators, but now it allows recipients to spend the funds at fast food restaurants.

Ernst pointed to nine states —Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia—that have opted into RMP. Participating restaurants must be located in an RMP-approved state, sign an agreement with that state, and be authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to accept SNAP benefits. Historically, participation was limited to a small number of restaurants within select counties.

New data provided by Ernst's office from the USDA shows that from June 2023 to May 2025, over $475 million in taxpayer dollars were spent and redeemed at fast-food...

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TOPICS: Government; Politics/Elections
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[BarbM]

Meat. Meat to make stew. Meat. Canned meat. Chicken. Use SNAP for the expensive food. Protien.

[Texan5]

Except for these items-raw vegetables-including potatoes, fresh fruit, beans and rice-the rest of your menu is just empty carbs and little nutrition-adults do not need milk-yogurt and/or cheese, and butter are better choices for healthy fat and calcuim-and peanut butter is not a dietary staple. Sugar is not a needed nutrition item, either, Adults and kids also need protein in a healthy diet-fresh meat and fish-even canned tuna. Bread is just a platform to put nutritious stuff on-it has very little of its own.

I agree we need to limit the stuff SNAP pays for-so we should keep it to healthy fresh food. We are the only country with fat poor people-even the kids-they are walking health problems that the rest of us pay for...

[Texan5]

Pasta is empty carbs-no protein-and canned stuff has too much salt and sugar-let people buy fresh stuff and learn to cook like normal, healthy people do...

[Varsity Flight]

+ orange juice (not from concentrate, all 100% orange juice no sugar, no additives)

[Texan5]

Fresh fruit-including oranges-is actually more nutritous than juice-squeezing your own oranges for juice works best, and it is not as costly...

[dforest]

Doggone it Joni. You take this away and it will deprive us of all of the YouTube/TikTok brawls inside the McDonalds.

[Texan5]

When we were kids, we saw commercials for that orange Tang stuff. We lived on a small ranch, my aunt in the Valley had a little citrus orchard, she and mom were naturalists-everything fresh, very few things packaged, canned, etc. So we begged for Tang next time we went to the grocery store in town, and mom bought us a jar of it. Next morning, we mixed the powder with the water, took a drink-and were disappointed-to kids used to fresh squeezed orange juice, it tasted like crap-overly sweet and lacking in real flavor-I’ve hated the stuff ever since...

[dinodino]

How about just eliminating it entirely. I can’t find in my copy of the Constitution where it says authorizes Congress to spend money to buy food for lazy morbidly obese fatasses.