Warning that “pandemic aid is morphing into endemic aid,” the Republican leader on the House Agriculture Committee said on Wednesday that it was time to rein in food stamp spending. Other farm-state Republicans called for stricter eligibility rules as a way to push people into the workforce and said SNAP “promotes a perverse business of poverty.”
Their comments, at a hearing to gather material for the 2023 farm bill, suggested SNAP could be a divisive centerpiece of the new farm bill. House Republicans took the lead in proposing drastic changes to SNAP in the 2014 and 2018 farm laws.
Farm bills traditionally are passed by a coalition of urban and rural lawmakers with the support of farm, environmental and conservation, and anti-hunger groups. How either portion of the farm bill — SNAP on one hand and the amalgam of commodity subsidy, rural development, land stewardship, and export promotion programs on the other — would fare on its own was unclear. The bulk of farm bill spending goes to public nutrition.
SNAP would cost $1.1 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Pennsylvania Rep. Glenn Thompson, the senior Republican on the Agriculture Committee, has called such spending levels exorbitant and reiterated on Wednesday his “concern that pandemic aid is morphing into endemic aid” through proposals to make permanent the emergency allotments authorized by Congress in pandemic relief packages. The allotments cost $2.8 billion in February.
“To say I disagree with those calls is an understatement,” said Thompson. “We do not need to spend for the sake of spending. … [S]ometimes our best intentions cause irreparable hardship for families that we aim to help.”
Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais questioned the value of so-called categorical eligibility, which allows people to be considered for SNAP if they interact with other social welfare programs. DesJarlais said it was too easy for newcomers to America to receive SNAP benefits, although Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes, who chairs the nutrition subcommittee, said access was far more circumscribed than DesJarlais described.
“We need to worry about taking care of Americans first,” said DesJarlais. Another Republican on the nutrition subcommittee, Florida Rep. Kat Cammack, said, “Generally, I’m concerned that SNAP promotes a perverse business of poverty.” There are “a lot of programs,” she said, that “seem to perpetuate more of a handout than a hand up.”
“The fact that there is continued need doesn’t mean the programs aren’t working,” responded Ty Jones Cox of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank. “They’re working as intended because SNAP actually expands when there’s need and contracts when the need is less.”
House Rules chairman Jim McGovern, a leading congressional advocate for SNAP, said it would be a “missed opportunity” if the temporary increases in SNAP benefits were allowed to expire. “Let me be clear: I will not support any farm bill that guts the nutrition safety net for millions of Americans. … We need to find way to strengthen the program.”
Democratic Rep. Ann Kuster of New Hampshire called for Congress to extend USDA waivers that allow free meals to all public school students and give school food directors leeway in meal preparation. The waivers are due to expire on June 30. A one-year extension would cost $11 billion.
At latest count, 41.2 million people were enrolled in SNAP, with average benefits of $233 per person, per month.
To watch a video of the hearing, click here.
To read the written testimony of witnesses, click here.