federal budget

The Trump administration proposed a 29 percent cut in food stamps on Monday, to be achieved by requiring more recipients to work at least 20 hours a week and by providing some benefits in the form of a box of food instead of letting people buy food themselves at grocery stores. The White House also asked Congress for stricter rules for access to free meals for low-income children at public schools.

Three weeks after President Trump boasted of protecting crop insurance in the 2018 farm bill, the White House proposed a 31 percent cut in the federally subsidized program on Monday. The cuts, part of the administration's budget package for fiscal 2021, were proposed — and rejected by lawmakers — in previous years.

The Trump administration would oust 1 in every 12 SNAP recipients, a total of 3.1 million people, under a plan released today to restrict access to food stamps through so-called categorical eligibility. “Some states are taking advantage of a loophole” to load SNAP rolls, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

The U.S. House opened debate on a mammoth federal spending bill, including money for the USDA, on Tuesday under the threat of a presidential veto of the $322 billion bill. The White House said it opposed half a dozen USDA provisions in the bill, including language that would preclude relocating two research agencies to Kansas City and implementing a new inspection system for hog-slaughter plants.

In budget proposals in 2017 and 2018, President Trump tried to slash funding for SNAP by about $200 billion over 10 years — roughly one-fourth of its total funding. Now, with Trump close to unveiling his fiscal 2020 budget package, the “hunger community” is concerned about a renewed call for massive cuts.

The Food for Peace program, created during the Cold War to relieve hunger overseas through the donation of U.S.-produced food, would be mothballed by the Trump administration in its fiscal 2019 budget. In its place, the State Department would provide emergency food aid through a smaller-ticket disaster assistance office that is expected to be thriftier and fleeter of foot.

Reviving a White House budget theme, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Americans do not believe food stamps should be “a permanent lifestyle” for able-bodied adults without dependents.

The second-largest U.S. farm group says the mammoth tax cut now pending in Congress could force cuts in farm subsidies, or possibly wipe them out, because of "pay-as-you-go" law.  "That would be a disastrous trade," said president Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union, taking a more skeptical view than many farm leaders of the impact of the proposed $1.5 trillion in cuts and associated changes to tax brackets and deductions.

Enrollment in food stamps, the premiere U.S. antihunger program, soared after the 2008-09 recession, prompting conservative lawmakers to say middle-class taxpayers could not afford the program. With the economic recovery, CBO estimates food stamp participation this year will be the lowest since 2010 and will decline annually through 2027.

A House Appropriations panel voted unanimously to keep two U.S. food aid programs in operation, albeit with less money, rather than eliminate them as proposed by President Trump. The subcommittee also rejected most of Trump’s plan to terminate rural water, housing, and business development programs.

Two senior Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee said President Trump's proposals to cut public feeding programs at home and abroad would increase hunger in the world. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said a high-ranking Republican's defense of the Food for Peace program — targeted for elimination — was "essentially irrefutable" without suggesting the program would be saved.