Texas
Texas should ban sugary drinks on food stamps
According to the USDA, the one item most commonly purchased with food stamps is Coke — the incredibly sugary drink that other parts of America call soda, pop or soft drinks.
That’s a problem that our state Legislature is moving to solve.
Any day, the Senate will vote on a bill to allow Texas to prohibit the purchase of sugary beverages and unhealthful snacks like candy and potato chips using food stamps. Lawmakers are reacting to the reality that food stamps have become a major cause of our state’s and our country’s health crisis.
All told, about a quarter of food stamp spending — some $25 billion — goes toward this unhealthful food according to Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Nearly twice as much money is spent on sweetened beverages, candy and prepared desserts than is spent on fruits and vegetables, according to a report from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA). Coke and junk food are known to contribute to obesity, with all the health problems that follow. And children suffer most, since early obesity leads to a lifetime of medical issues.
But food stamp spending on unhealthful food isn’t just a medical and moral crisis. It’s also a monetary crisis for taxpayers. Every dollar in food stamp spending comes from people like you and me. That means we’re funding this health crisis. What’s more, we’re also paying for the resulting health care costs, since most food stamp recipients are also on the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program. Taxpayers are getting hit from two sides.
Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded health programs spent $60 billion a year on obesity-related treatments in 2015 and 2016, according to a study published in the Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, and that number has almost certainly grown in the past decade.
The numbers are so high, in part, because using food stamps encourages people to buy unhealthful food. FGA research shows that people on the program drink more sugary beverages than those who aren’t, even when they have similar incomes. It’s also the case that food stamp recipients have a higher obesity rate than people who aren’t, again accounting for income.
This is a vicious cycle in which taxpayers are helping to ruin people’s health and then paying for the resulting treatments. Hence state lawmakers are taking action. The bill they’re considering would help lower-income Texans make healthful choices, while protecting every Texas taxpayer from both fueling and treating a health crisis.
Practically, the bill would direct state officials to ask the federal government for permission to prohibit unhealthful foods. The food stamp program is ultimately federal, even though states operate it, so D.C.’s sign-off is necessary. It’s safe to assume the Trump administration would grant the request, given the president’s promise to “Make America Healthy Again” and his appointment of Cabinet officials like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at Health and Human Services, and Brooke Rollins at Agriculture.
Texans aren’t the only ones who are pushing for solutions. Other states are moving to make the same request, showing the groundswell of support for protecting taxpayers and improving public health.
If and when this reform goes into effect, Texans will benefit.
Jay Bhattacharya, the incoming director of the National Institutes of Health, estimates that 141,000 kids wouldn’t become obese and 240,000 adults wouldn’t get Type 2 diabetes with a nationwide prohibition of food stamp purchases of sugary drinks. Prohibiting other unhealthful foods like potato chips would help even more people avoid major health problems.
Lawmakers are right to tackle this crisis. It’s always good to protect taxpayers. But it’s even better to protect taxpayers while empowering vulnerable people to lead healthier lives. The sooner the state Legislature passes this food stamp reform, the stronger and healthier our state will be.
Victoria Eardley, a Dallas resident, is marketing director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
In an incident that was horrific beyond words, late last month, a stunned family watched in horror as a car plowed into the Katy, Texas home of a 76-year-old mother and grandmother, killing her. The driver has been charged with manslaughter.
In the aftermath of the crash, it emerged that the car in question was a Tesla, and that the driver was making use of full self-driving mode (FSD) around the time the crash occurred. The victim’s family has named Tesla and the driver as defendants in a lawsuit. But per Electrek, Tesla was able to view crash data very quickly after the incident, and the head of AI at the company, Ashok Elluswamy, said the driver “manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area.”
In the days after the crash, Tesla fans took issue with coverage that characterized the car as in FSD when the crash occurred. CEO Elon Musk seemed to agree, replying to a post, “Yes, this makes no sense. FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high speed crash!”
But Musk seems to be assuming bad faith, as if coverage implied FSD had suddenly shifted into, perhaps, some kind of previously unannounced homicidal maniac mode and attacked a house. If anyone was saying this is what happened, they should apologize. It’s clearly not what happened.
And on Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) largely confirmed Tesla’s version of events. Their report reads, in part:
“Electronic data recovered from the vehicle indicated that before the crash, the driver manually overrode FSD (Supervised) by pressing the accelerator pedal to 100%, and the vehicle’s speed was greater than 70 mph when the crash occurred.”
But cooler heads had noted weeks earlier that, like with good old fashioned cruise control, accelerating doesn’t boot you from FSD. The car takes the input, and stays in FSD. The question isn’t one of mechanics and technology, but one of philosophy: if FSD is meant to be “driving” when someone jams on the accelerator in a residential area, FSD may not be the “driver” in one important sense, but the car was still in FSD mode.
Because as much as Tesla would probably like FSD to be a total non-factor in the incident, that may not be the case either.
ABC News noted that, according to court documents, the driver claimed he “passed out” with the car in FSD on the highway, and that’s the last thing he remembers before the crash. He says he wasn’t sick, and medical records show no seizures, cardiac episodes, drugs, or alcohol.
A local Fox affiliate says records show the car was making deliveries for DoorDash while in FSD in the “hours and minutes leading up to the crash.” While in a neighborhood, it apparently signaled it was going to turn left onto one street, but instead the pedal went to the metal. This took the Tesla onto the victim’s cul-de-sac instead, and put it on its fateful collision course with her house.
To make matters weirder, other court records now show, per Electrek, that the driver had Googled the terms, “Tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026,” “FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving,” and “Tesla fsd too timid.” That’s the kind of thing you Google when you’re looking for a Reddit post from someone sharing your consumer gripe.
In any case, the odds aren’t good that the driver wanted this to happen, nor that Tesla programmed its cars with evil intent. But FSD was being used around the time of this unusual fatal incident, and the public deserves to know more. Fortunately, a lot more will come out as the lawsuit progresses.
AUSTIN – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Wednesday he has secured a settlement of bankruptcy claims against genetic testing company 23andMe stemming from a 2023 data breach that exposed personal information, including some genetic ancestry data, of 6.9 million customers worldwide.
Paxton’s office said the settlement includes $150 million for a multistate coalition of 42 states. But because of limited funds in 23andMe’s bankruptcy estate and competing claims, the states’ recovery will be $18 million paid immediately, with Texas receiving $1,266,860.
23andMe disclosed in October 2023 that attackers had accessed accounts affecting 6.9 million consumers. Some of the information was later posted for sale on the dark web, according to Paxton’s office, which said the company learned of the breach months after the data became publicly available. The office said 23andMe initially denied a breach and later blamed consumers’ account settings and password practices.
Paxton joined a multistate investigation that concluded 23andMe used unreasonable security practices and failed to implement adequate safeguards against hacking, the office said.
23andMe filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2025. Paxton’s office said the settlement incorporates privacy and cybersecurity requirements, including enhanced security standards, comprehensive risk assessments and creation of an independent advisory board, along with enforcement of state privacy laws and continued consumer data deletion rights.
“Companies that collect and profit from Texans’ most personal information have a legal duty to protect it,” Paxton said in a statement.
The company also agreed to a $46.75 million class-action settlement in the bankruptcy case for affected U.S. consumers who submitted claims by Feb. 17, 2026, Paxton’s office said.
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
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