Lawmaker bites on colleague’s snack remark

Newly-elected state Rep. Sue Scott tussled Wednesday with outgoing veteran lawmaker Percy Malone in an exchange that began with a snack-food reference.

A Rogers Republican, Scott, asked several questions of Sen.Jack Crumbly, D-Widener, and members of the state Minority Health Commission, who had just finished presenting a study showing that 17 counties, mostly in the Delta, had average life expectancies up to a decade less than Benton County - the county with the state’s longest-lived citizens.

A retired caterer from Northwest Arkansas, Scott asked how many residents of those counties - including children- used drugs. She also asked the how many of them used food stamps.

Then she moved on to snack food. Specifically, Little Debbie Snacks, the maker ofdozens of snack cakes and cookies.

“I’d like to know, have you thought about coming up with something, maybe when these people - these dear people - use their [food-stamp] cards when they go to the grocery store, that maybe they have to buy fruits and vegetablesand a bag of potatoes to cook instead of buying 14 packages of Little Debbie snack cakes?” Scott said.

“Let me stop this,” said Malone, chairman of the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee. “The question is certainly leadingto somewhere that I don’t want to go. We don’t monitor how many people are eating Little Debbie snack cakes for a lot of reasons, one is privacy issues.” Scott will take her seat in the Legislature in January, Malone said.

“If you want those agencies to monitor those things you just mentioned, that will be within your purview,” said Malone, who is leaving the Legislature because of term limits. He has served in the House and Senate since 1995.

After a moment, Scott raised her hand and said she “would like to respectfully withdraw that statement.”

Phillips, Poinsett and Mississippi have the lowest life expectancies, according to the study completed by the commission and the Department of Health. Phillips, the lowest in the state, has a 69.8 year average while residents of Benton live for an averageof 79.8 years.

Idonia Trotter, director of the commission, said Scott touched on a serious problem - the lack of healthy choices in food for poor people.

“There is a reason people buy the $1 hamburger versus the $2.69 vegetable. It’s based on the money they have, the poverty issue,” Trotter said later Wednesday.

But everyone - not just residents of the state’s poorest counties - needs to eat more healthily, she said.

“I think that was what she was trying to say, it was a different way of saying it,” Trotter said. “It was definitely an interesting analysis she made.”

As Scott continued her questioning of the commission, she referred to “these people.”

Malone, D-Arkadelphia, cut her off: “What do you mean by ‘these people?’”

“These people who are in these counties, who are introuble, who need help,” Scott replied.

Scott concluded her remarks by praising Benton County’s leading ranking in longevity and bemoaning the health conditions in the 17 counties.

“I saw Benton County in gold - and rightfully, so it sounds. It breaks my heart that we have other counties in such difficulties,” Scott said. She said she wished she had been appointed or volunteered for a committee that would pursue solutions to the problem.

Federal rules bar states from dictating what foods can be bought with food stamps, said Amy Webb, spokesman for the Department of Human Services. Those receiving food stamps can’t buy certain items with their cards, including liquor, tobacco or “ready-made” items such as deli items.

“What we don’t want to do as a government is tell people what they can and can’t eat,” Webb said. “The program is designed to treat low-income people the same way that everyone else is treated. We don’t want to tell a low-income person that they can’t eat Doritos, but wealthier people can.”

Crumbly said the state, recently ranked 48th in overall health by the United Health Foundation, a Minnesotabased nonprofit public-health group, has to improve.

“We must do better,” he said. “These are human beings we’re talking about. We’re not talking about inanimate objects.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/20/2012

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