The principal House negotiators on the Farm Bill conference committee cite progress toward a deal. House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) suggested a framework for a deal could emerge by next week. Peterson said good work is being done on the bill’s energy title and controversial SNAP cuts. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a lead negotiator on food stamps, said a she was hopeful that “starting place” on cuts would be coming in the next few days. The Senate bill cuts the program by $4 billion on top of $11 billion in cuts that went into effect this month. The House bill has $39 billion in additional cuts. The House also authorizes the SNAP program only for three years, while authorizing farm subsidies for five. “That is absolutely not something I can support,” Fudge said, predicting that House Republicans would back down on that provision.
Source: The Hill, 11/13/13, Farm Bill
The House Farm Bill imposes work requirements for adults who are receiving SNAP benefits. Section 109 removes states’ flexibility to waive time limits when jobs are not available (three months in any 36-month period) on childless unemployed working-age adults receiving SNAP benefits. The bill does not require states to offer recipients opportunities to participate in a training activity nor does it provide any additional funding to support such activities.
Section 139 allows states to impose work requirements on SNAP recipients, including parents of infants and young children, and could deny benefits to entire families if they did not participate. States that use this option could keep half the savings resulting from decreased SNAP payments and could use it for any purpose, even though the federal government pays all SNAP costs. States would have to certify that they intended to provide work activities to people who are required to participate, but the bill has no way to ensure that states do not punish families who were not offered a work activity slot or who could not get child care for school-age children.
Source: Center for Law and Social Policy, 11/13, Farm Bill Work Policy
Over 130 national organizations have urged House and Senate conferees to reject cuts to SNAP in any Farm Bill they negotiate. If SNAP is weakened, they assert, the nation will have more hunger and food insecurity, worse educational outcomes, worse health, and higher health costs. While food banks and other charities provide an important supplement to federal nutrition programs, they say, they can’t make up for lost SNAP benefits. Federal nutrition programs deliver 23 times the amount of food assistance private charities provide.
Source: Food Research Action Council, 11/13/13, Letter to Conferees
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