The powerful rotisserie chicken industry applied what proved to be unrelenting heat from multiple angles to Congress and saw the deliciously juicy meat of its labors paying dividends on Thursday as by an overwhelming margin lawmakers passed Arkansas Congressman Rick Crawford’s amendment allowing SNAP beneficiaries to purchase the pre-heated birds. The abeyance, which runs contrary to traditional opposition to access to prepared food products in the social safety net, only further slippens the slope toward ribs, wings, fried chicken buckets, and other grocery heat-lamp foods.
And to be serious for a minute who gives a shit if Crawford’s industrial chicken farmer donors did push him into it only for him to sell it as responsive to his economically and educationally deprived constituents. People on SNAP shouldn’t have to buy a goddamned whole raw chicken when there’s a properly-cooked one right there for a not-meaningfully higher price. That this amendment was even necessary speaks to how fucking stupidly the burden of preventing beneficiaries from buying Heineken and Winstons is applied to those who really do need to feed their families.