The largest U.S. anti-hunger program, SNAP, will cost $59 billion less over the coming decade than thought in February because food prices are moderating, said the Congressional Budget Office. The updated CBO baseline also indicated that estimated savings in the House Republican farm bill were too high and not nearly enough to pay for the plan’s proposed increases in crop subsidy and crop insurance spending.
SNAP accounts for $4 of every $5 in farm bill spending. Republicans used the catchphrase “more farm in the farm bill” to describe their packages, which call for tens of billions of dollars in new spending on farm supports while trimming SNAP outlays.
On Tuesday, in a midyear update, the CBO lowered its estimate of SNAP costs by $59 billion, or about 5 percent, for the 10 years of fiscal 2025 to 2034, for an overall cost of $1.099 trillion.
“These decreases were largely the result of a reduction in the projection of annual benefits,” said the CBO, adding that “recent data showed that actual average monthly benefits were lower than previously projected.”
Benefits will cost about $10 per person, per month less than estimated in the February baseline, said the agency. SNAP benefits are adjusted annually for inflation, and the CBO expects inflation, which was 4.1 percent in 2023, to slow to an annual average of 2.2 percent after 2025. SNAP enrollment was forecast by the CBO to shrink 11 percent over the next 10 years.
Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow said the CBO update gave House Republicans “only a small fraction of the $50 billion hole they need to fill to pay for their bill.” The farm bill approved by the House Agriculture Committee on May 24 would offset a $53 billion increase in crop subsidy and crop insurance spending by shutting off USDA access to a $30 billion reserve fund. The fund was used heavily for trade war and pandemic relief payments.
The CBO estimated that “charter act authority” withdrawals from the fund would total $12 billion over the coming decade, down from its February estimate of $15 billion. Republican staff workers on the House Agriculture Committee have said the figure ought to be at least $65 billion — more than enough to pay for their farm bill — based on expenditures in the past several years.
“Today’s updated projections from CBO prove what we have been saying all along: The House Republican farm bill is unpaid for, relying on magic math and wishful thinking,” said Stabenow. In contrast, she said, she has assurances from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of $5 billion in additional funding for her farm bill package.
“And, importantly, it does not fracture the farm and food coalition that is the foundation of every successful farm bill.” Stabenow says she will not accept cuts in SNAP spending and that climate mitigation funding must be spent on practices that capture carbon or reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Republicans would loosen or remove those climate “guardrails.”
John Boozman of Arkansas, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, released a farm bill framework last week built on the same lines as the House Agriculture Committee bill. “I hope that we can get a farm bill done” this year, he said.
Due to election-year politics, the timeline for enacting a farm bill this year is shortening. A farm policy expert predicted last week that the year would expire without passage of a farm bill because of the unresolved disputes over SNAP cuts, climate funding, and farm subsidy increases.
The CBO report, “An update to the budget and economic outlook: 2024 to 2034,” is available here.