The leading House advocate of the food stamp program pointed to forecasts of Democratic gains in the mid-term elections and told anti-hunger activists, “I have a feeling that if we have a lousy farm bill, we’ll be in a position to write a better farm bill after November.” Rep. Jim McGovern said anti-hunger groups fight relentlessly against “cruel” cuts in food stamps. “I’d rather have no farm bill than a bad farm bill,” he added.
The comments were the strongest yet from the Massachusetts Democrat, who has spoken for months against cuts in food stamps as part of the 2018 farm bill. President Trump proposed a 30 percent cut in food stamps, including a 10 percent reduction in enrollment, earlier this month. House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway has said he wants to make “meaningful reforms,” particularly in work rules, but has not spelled out his plans for nutrition programs.
“I have not seen one sentence of the nutrition title,” McGovern said during a speech at the National Anti-Hunger Policy Conference. The silence from Conaway, he said, was an omen that “there will be a lot of bad stuff in it.”
In 2013, the House defeated a farm bill for the first time during floor debate when conservative Republicans pressed for the largest cuts in food stamps in a generation. It took several months for lawmakers to re-assemble the legislation and pass a compromise that cut food stamps by a comparatively small $8.6 billion over 10 years. Currently, the program feeds more than 40 million Americans. Combined with other food assistance programs, the cost was around $70 billion in 2017.