Congressional debate over a new Farm Bill faces many snags, including the debate over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also called “SNAP” or “food stamps.” Now that the Oct. 31 deadline to renew the Farm Bill has passed, 47 million food stamp recipients are facing cuts in their benefits, and the congressional debate rages on. Andy Novakovic, agricultural economist and professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics at Cornell University, discusses the political obstacles posed by food stamps in Congress.
Novakovic says:
“At long last, the House of Representatives and the Senate will be engaged in conference to seek a compromise between the combined House bills HR 2642 and HR 3102 and the Senate bill S 954, more commonly referred to as the Farm Bill.
The conference committee appointed to vote on the broad Farm Bill provisions includes 23 representatives and 12 senators, and the party affiliations are 18 Republicans and 17 Democrats. For the bulk of the bill, the conference report must be approved by 12 of those representatives and seven of the senators.
They have their work cut out for them: Among the House conferees for example, 12 voted with the House majority in favor of the so-called Southerland amendment, which reinstated Clinton-era language authorizing states to impose work requirements for recipients of food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Many Democrats consider this to be unreasonable in light of an economy that is still not generating jobs and the circumstances of many poor families. It was for them the poison pill that would not allow them to support the final farm bill.
Conversely, many Republicans believe that beneficiaries of food subsidies have a social obligation to work or actively look for work and otherwise show evidence of worthiness and an active desire to not be dependent on government for sustenance. Not surprisingly, 13 of them supported HR 3102, which includes the Southerland amendment but also provides for other changes in eligibility and benefit rules that the Congressional Budget Office calculates would reduce expenditures on SNAP by almost $40 billion over the next 10 years.
If one assumes that all Senators would have opposed the Southerland Amendment and thus HR 3102 (the House nutrition title), the prior voting would suggest that 22 conference members do not favor deep cuts to SNAP and the cuts they are on record supporting range from a low of about $4 billion over 10 years to a high of about $20 billion over 10 years. Thirteen of them are on record favoring deep cuts to SNAP, and this represents a slim majority of the House members.
The debate on SNAP, and food assistance programs broadly, is passionate and rancorous. Not only are most members deeply committed to their positions, the positions they hold are so far apart as to make reconciliation all but impossible to imagine. It will take trading a lot of something else for many members to significantly yield their position, and there will be no compromise unless some, or even many, make significant concessions on the Nutrition Title.”
With 15 percent of all Americans receiving SNAP assistance at an annual cost of about $75 billion, it is also quite likely that SNAP will be one of the programs specifically discussed in the new Budget conference committee as well. This will further complicate legislative decisions about changes to SNAP.
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