Republicans hope Trump amenable to food stamp restrictions

In 2011, former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration rejected then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's soda ban for food stamp recipients and in June, he raised "significant" concerns with LePage's proposal, saying there'd be no meaningful way to evaluate whether the ban changed the way recipients bought sweets.

While Trump's budget proposal doesn't include food stamp changes, his choice for secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, of Georgia, has signaled support for overhauling the $71 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which administers food stamps to 44 million recipients.

The governor's renewed request would divert federal funds away from nutrition education — which amounted to $4.3 million in the last fiscal year — and toward food banks, schools and other community agencies to distribute healthy foods.

Critics from major medical groups to food policy experts say the existing program promotes chronic illness and amounts to public subsidies for powerful junk food conglomerates that lobby against restrictions.