Over half a billion taxpayer dollars went to fast-food chains through a little-known food stamp loophole.

A Texas Republican decided enough was enough and put a bill on the table to shut it down.

And the details of what Rep. Brandon Gill uncovered about where your SNAP dollars have been going will have you seeing red.

What the Bill Actually Does

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) introduced the Ending Restaurant Purchases with SNAP Act, legislation that would eliminate the federal Restaurant Meals Program entirely and bar restaurants from accepting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.

The bill targets SNAP’s Restaurant Meals Program, an initiative that currently permits qualifying recipients to spend their benefits on hot, ready-to-eat meals at participating restaurants.

SNAP benefits are typically reserved for groceries, but the federal program has an initiative that allows beneficiaries to get hot meals at certain fast-food establishments. The SNAP Restaurant Meals Program has cost over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds across nine participating states between June 2023 and May 2025, according to the New York Post.

California alone accounted for approximately $475 million of that spending.

Gill did not mince words explaining why he introduced the legislation.

“SNAP is supposed to help struggling Americans put nutritious food on the table, not stick taxpayers with the bill for fast food,” Gill said in a statement.

“More than half a billion dollars in SNAP benefits have gone to restaurants through this loophole in just two years while the Trump administration is working to get junk food out of the program,” he added.

Gill’s proposal would prohibit restaurants from taking part in the program while continuing to permit public agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide meals to SNAP recipients. Programs that deliver meals to elderly and disabled beneficiaries, for example, would remain permissible.

Participating restaurant chains currently include McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, along with independent restaurants.

How the Program Got This Big

Federal rules generally prohibit SNAP recipients from purchasing hot food prepared for immediate consumption. The Restaurant Meals Program, however, allows states to make an exception for recipients who are at least 60 years old, have disabilities or are experiencing homelessness, as well as their spouses.

Nine states currently participate: Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia and select counties in Illinois.

The program did not start out looking like this. The lawmakers who joined Gill in pushing for reform argued that a program originally designed for people unable to cook or store food had expanded well beyond that purpose. “What was originally intended as a narrow accommodation for individuals unable to store or prepare food, the program has grown and is now dominated by large national fast-food and quick-service chains,” they wrote in a letter to federal departments.

California has expanded the program statewide and authorized thousands of participating restaurants, including McDonald’s, Subway, KFC, Burger King, Taco Bell and Jack in the Box.

That is a long way from a narrow carve-out for the homeless and the elderly.

A month after a congressional hearing on the issue, Gill signed a letter led by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) that objected to SNAP benefits used to buy fast food.

The bill, formally titled the Ending Restaurant Purchases with SNAP Act of 2026, was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.

The Hearing That Put This Issue on the Map

Gill had been building toward this legislation for months. Back in June, he squared off with a SNAP policy advocate during a congressional hearing that drew a lot of attention for one very direct exchange.

Gill pressed Gina Plata-Nino, director of policy and advocacy for the Food Research and Action Center, over whether taxpayer-funded food benefits should pay for sugary sodas like Coca-Cola.

Plata-Nino tried to dodge. Gill did not let her.

“Do the American people need Coca-Cola to survive?” he asked. “What’s nutritional about Coca-Cola?”

“I am not a nutritionist. I am a food security expert,” Plata-Nino replied.

Gill later argued that “there’s not nutritional value to sugary sodas” and criticized the witness for declining to say taxpayers should not fund their purchases through SNAP.

But the exchange did not stop at soda. Gill pressed Plata-Nino on whether her organization is funded by companies that profit from SNAP. “Are you that ideologically dug in that you want our tax dollars paying for sugary sodas that you will not, in a straightforward way, admit that sugary sodas are not healthful for the American people?” Gill asked.

Plata-Nino answered that focusing on soda “when people are going hungry” was the wrong priority. Gill cut her off and pointed out that a substantial portion of those tax dollars was going straight to soda purchases.

That hearing was not a sideshow. It was Gill laying the groundwork for exactly the kind of legislation he just introduced.

What This Is Really About

The SNAP program costs American taxpayers roughly $100 billion a year. Around 37 million people are enrolled in the program. Nobody serious argues that genuinely needy Americans should go hungry. But there is a real and growing question about whether a program designed to put food on the table has drifted into something else entirely.

When fast-food chains become the primary beneficiaries of a welfare program, something has gone sideways. Data cited by Gill and Sen. Joni Ernst show that more than $524 million in SNAP benefits was redeemed at participating restaurants between June 2023 and May 2025, with California accounting for approximately $475 million of that spending. Arizona ranked second at $41.4 million, while New York, Michigan, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Illinois, Virginia and Maryland recorded considerably smaller totals.

California’s number is worth sitting with for a moment. Nearly $475 million out of $524 million total flowed through one state. That is not a program serving the scattered elderly and homeless for whom it was originally designed. That is a program that has been stretched, expanded, and exploited by a state government that has made a habit of treating federal benefit programs as an all-you-can-eat buffet funded by everybody else’s paycheck.

The MAHA movement, which the Trump administration has championed through Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, has made cleaning up the food supply and getting junk out of federal nutrition programs a central priority. Gill’s bill fits squarely into that effort. The bill arrives as the Trump administration and congressional Republicans pursue broader changes aimed at restricting SNAP purchases they consider inconsistent with the program’s nutritional purpose.

And the opposition will be predictable. The same advocacy groups that could not bring themselves to say Coca-Cola is nutritionally worthless will argue that closing this loophole punishes vulnerable people. Supporters of the Restaurant Meals Program counter that it serves people who cannot reasonably prepare food at home, including seniors with limited mobility, people with disabilities and homeless recipients without access to a kitchen, and that eliminating restaurant purchases would not result in more home-cooked meals but would instead leave those recipients with fewer options.

That argument deserves a response. Gill’s bill does not eliminate meal assistance for the elderly and disabled. It eliminates the restaurant exception while leaving intact the ability of public agencies and nonprofits to provide meals. The difference is that a nonprofit delivering hot meals to a homebound senior is not the same thing as McDonald’s running a tab on the federal government.

The 2025 reconciliation law already expanded work requirements and changed the program’s eligibility and financing rules. Gill’s bill is the next logical step in a broader effort to get SNAP back to its stated mission: helping struggling Americans put nutritious food on the table, not subsidizing the quarterly earnings of national fast-food chains.

The advocacy community that profits from keeping these programs as expansive as possible will push back hard. The question is whether Congress has the backbone to hold the line. Gill is betting it does.

Sources: New York Post, Washington Examiner, Newsweek, Congress.gov, Fox News, RealClearPolitics, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform