No matter the fate of debt limit legislation in the House, and its proposal to more widely apply a 90-day limit on SNAP benefits, Congress is not done with food stamps this year. Attempts to cut SNAP costs and eligibility will shift to the farm bill in coming weeks, said lawmakers on Tuesday.
House Agriculture chairman Glenn Thompson, who would make more able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) subject to the 90-day limit, told the North American Agricultural Journalists that “my preference would have been to work on this just in the farm bill.”
“I’m supportive of what I was able to put into the debt ceiling (bill). Are there other changes to be made (to SNAP)? That remains to be seen,” he said.
The House was scheduled to vote as early as Wednesday on the GOP-sponsored debt-limit bill. It would curtail federal spending over the next decade in exchange for raising the debt ceiling for one year. The White House said on Tuesday if the bill reaches president Biden, “he would veto it.” The veto threat said the Republican package, among many flaws, “would put food assistance at risk for millions of older Americans.”
An estimated 1 million people would be affected by the provision to limit SNAP benefits to ABAWDs ages 18-55 to 90 days in a three-year period unless they work at least 20 hours a week. The 90- day limit was created in the 1996 welfare reform law and now applies to ABAWDs from 18-49 years old.
Raising the ABAWD age limit would save around $2 billion over 10 years, said Thompson. The GOP bill also would end the ability for states to carry over from one year to the next a specified number of individual exemptions from the 90-day limit. Thompson said he believed raising the ABAWD age limit was “very reasonable.”
Food stamps would account for 80 percent of outlays for the farm bill with a price tag of $1.5 trillion.
SNAP “very definitely“ will be a farm bill issue, said Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee. “It’s the vast majority of the farm bill.” The 2023 farm bill would be the most expensive ever; “We’re going to make those dollars work.”
Boozman also said he would not vote for the farm bill if it did not increase reference prices, a key factor in calculating crop subsidy payments. Farm groups have asked for higher reference prices and an expanded crop insurance program.
Senate Agriculture chairwoman Debbie Stabenow said “I cannot imagine any scenario” in which the Democart-controlled Senate would accept the House Republican proposal on ABAWDs. She also opposed proposals to reduce SNAP benefits, now $6 per person per day, after a temporary boost during the pandemic.
“The facts are very different than their rhetoric,” said Stabenow. “It (food) is not a political weapon to be used.”
Conservative Republicans in Congress unsuccessfully proposed cuts in SNAP spending and tougher eligibility rules during work on the 2014 and 2018 farm bills.
“This has always been the debate we have every five years,” said Rep. Jim Costa, California Democrat.
Rep. Dusty Johnson, South Dakota Republican and an Agriculture Committee member, is sponsor of a House bill to raise the ABAWD age limit to 65 years.
“I am not supportive of his bill,” said Thompson, who said he was interested in adjusting rules on SNAP benefits to former convicts and in preventing a “benefits cliff” when SNAP recipients get better-paying jobs and see a reduction in food assistance. Thompson has spoken harshly of the Biden administration update of the Thrifty Food Plan, a gauge of the cost of a healthy diet, that resulted in a 27 percent increase in SNAP benefits compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Both Stabenow and Thompson said they wanted to write a bipartisan farm bill. “I look forward to getting 218-plus votes,” said Thompson, meaning more than the 218 votes required to pass a bill “I welcome them from both sides of the aisle.”