There are those on the far right who hold similar opinions.
So eating is a basic necessity of life, and we need to provide a social safety net that people don not starve, but meals above a bare subsistence level are a luxury good?
I have heard Conservatives argue that instead of Welfare and Foodstamps, we should just have these government stores where everyone can purchase as much whole-wheat flour, lard, and powdered milk as they want, and if a person wanted more than these subsistence food items, they should just get off the couch and work a few hours?
Actually, this plan has been tried out. I heard that "fry bread" became a Native American specialty owing to a Federal food program. Many Native Americans bear the genetic legacy of their ancestors being hunters adapted to feast-or-famine, where the modern diet leads to Type 2 Diabetes and other problems, but the Federal program was well-meaning, and I am getting off topic.
Oh, and then there is cheese, Reagan's cheese. Reagan got to cut back on the safety net and make up for it with free cheese -- solved the ag surplus and urban hunger problems in one step. I actually got to eat some -- Mom told me "you're eating it" when Grandma queued up at the Senior Center for the cheese and she put packets of it in Christmas baskets for the college-bound grandkids. Mmmm, mmm, mmm, that was good eatin'!
Oh, did I tell you that illegal drugs are one of the great social burdens that society has the duty to discourage any way it can? Yeah, yeah, most of the harm from drugs comes from the War on Drugs -- highest incarceration rate among our trading partners, dirty needles/impure drugs, racial impact, police corruption -- but if these drugs were not illegal, everyone would stay at home stoned out of their minds and no work would get done, like China under the British thumb? Besides, a drug habit is really a "luxury good" that you can get by without if you are poor, and if you are wealthy, you can afford the cost of rehab when addiction gets the better of you?
So here is what a Midwestern governor wants to do next -- drug-test food-aid recipients.
So here I am, working for my food, being very careful to eat healthy and stay within a budget, and I am in line behind a rag-proletarian buying all manners of expensive junk food who pulls out an EBT card? And you know a lot of that "stuff" gets traded for drugs? Why should a government food program support beyond the bare necessities of wheat flour, lard, and dry milk -- anything more is a luxury. Twinkies and sodas are certainly a luxury offering personal harm and social harm when he have to pay for your dialysis, whether consumed directly for a sugar-high or traded for a more industrial-strength high?
The argument against what the Governor wants to do (apart from the chance of being blown up in a court challenge on Equal Protection and Unreasonable Search and Seizure grounds) is human dignity. You have people who need government aid to buy food who probably have a drab life to begin with, and you (well, maybe not you, but the Right Wing) want to deny them the pleasure of eating Froot Loops. Deny them the personal choice between spending their EBT funds on Froot Loops or substituting Mom's Best Wheat Squares (a "generic" no added-sugar no-salt whole grain alternative)?
What the Right Wing wants to do with the poor, others want to impose on the Middle Class? So a personal auto is deemed monumentally destructive, but have you checked out the Federal stats on transit districts and that owing to off-peak service, deadhead return trips during rush hour, a Diesel bus breaks even with a two-person carpool in CO2 emissions? You want all of those excise taxes and our Governor wants to trade food for a sample of your bodily fluids? What price human dignity? What price human liberty?