SNAP “is in dire need of reform,” and the solution is to turn the program into a block grant that requires states to share the cost of benefits, said a group speaking for conservative House Republicans. The Republican Study Committee budget package also said lawmakers should follow former President Donald Trump’s lead to slash farm supports.
Congress is due to write a new farm bill this year, which heightens the chances that the RSC proposals, such as broader application of work requirements for safety net programs, will receive attention. The debt limit law enacted early this month expanded the age requirement for ABAWDs — able-bodied adults without dependents — who are limited to 90 days of SNAP benefits in a three-year period unless they work at least 80 hours a month. The farm bill would be an opportunity for further restrictions.
“Our budget is real and it’s floor-ready. It’s time to get our country back on track,” said the RSC’s chairman, Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. The RSC said its package would balance the budget in seven years and cut federal spending by $16.3 trillion over 10 years.
Four out of five House Republicans are members of the RSC, as are 21 of the 29 Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee. The RSC announcement of its package included statements of support from three Agriculture Committee members: Reps. Randy Feenstra of Iowa, Doug LaMalfa of California, and David Rouzer of North Carolina. None of them mentioned the USDA proposals.
SNAP should be converted to “a discretionary block grant to states based on rates of unemployment, poverty, and the length of time beneficiaries receive aid,” said the RSC. For the first time, states would pay a portion of benefits; at present, they pay half of administrative costs.
“Calling on states to share benefit expenses would ensure careful consideration of the federal spending requested and promote targeting aid to the most vulnerable while connecting recipients to work and lifting them out of poverty,” said the RSC. While states would have flexibility in how they run SNAP, they would be required to “maintain a robust work activation program for able-bodied adults that strictly enforces time limits for how long an individual can receive benefits without meeting certain work requirements.”
The RSC would roll back an increase in SNAP benefits that resulted from the USDA’s recalculation of the cost of a healthy diet in 2021. It would also repeal so-called categorical eligibility, a routine target of conservatives, which allows people with low incomes to be considered for SNAP benefits even if they have assets greater than those usually required for eligibility.
For agricultural spending, the RSC said it would eliminate or revamp crop and dairy subsidy, land stewardship, export promotion, and crop insurance programs to save more than $100 billion over 10 years. Tax reforms, including repeal of the estate tax, would reduce the burden on the agricultural industry by $275 billion in the same span, it said.
The RSC said its package “would strengthen this sector by effectively adopting President Trump’s agriculture plan in conjunction with this budget’s mass deregulation and pro-growth tax laws.”
It called for eliminating the Price Loss Coverage and Agriculture Risk Coverage subsidies for field crops; scaling back the federal subsidy of crop insurance premiums to 48 percent from the current 62 percent; eliminating the dairy program; phasing out sugar supports; prohibiting enrollment in the Conservation Reserve and Conservation Stewardship programs; eliminating export promotion programs; and repealing the Specialty Crop Block Grant program.
In his final budget proposal for the USDA, Trump said farm program benefits should be limited to producers with an adjusted gross income of $500,000 a year instead of the $900,000 AGI cutoff that was in force.
The 167-page package is available here.