Pat Grassley and Jesus: Fresh fish or canned?

There are two ways of looking at Iowa House File 3, recently proposed by Republicans in the Iowa Legislature, including Pat Grassley, son of Charles, speaker of the Iowa House and likely candidate to fill the old guy's shoes in the U.S. Senate appointively should the aged senator give out.

Under the bill, low-income, older, and disabled Iowans who rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (formerly known as food stamps) would not be able to buy things like fresh meat, white bread, canned and frozen vegetables and sliced American cheese. The list of forbiddens is huge.

On the one hand, Republicans cite the need to trim entitlement programs. SNAP is federally funded, however, and nothing in the legislation will save Iowa money. And it does seem a bit odd for a meat-producing state to forbid the purchase of fresh meat.

Or is it just that Republican legislators, feeling the urge to tread on the downtrodden, simply are looking for ways to tread more decisively?

So Iowa has made the national news again --- any publicity is better than no publicity, you know. And an interesting theological question has arisen. Had a Republican lawmaker been present among the disciples, would he have forbidden Jesus to distribute fresh fish to the multitudes and insisted on canned?