food stamps

The leaders of the House Agriculture Committee said aloud, albeit softly, what they have hinted for weeks — they want more money for the 2018 farm bill than is being spent under current law. Chairman Michael Conaway phrased the request to the Budget Committee as a need for "budget flexibility" for the farm bill while the committee's senior Democrat, Collin Peterson, said "we may need a little more."

President Trump would pay for his proposed $54-billion increase in military spending in fiscal 2018 by cutting domestic discretionary programs by 15 percent, said the think tank Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "The president's proposal would continue a severe, multi-year squeeze" on discretionary programs such as education, job training, clean water, and medical and scientific research, said the think tank.

In the name of improving public health, the government should set up a multi-state demonstration project that bans poor people from using food stamps to buy soda and other sweetened beverages that are blamed for contributing to the obesity epidemic, said an American Enterprise Institute official.

For those trying to read the political tea leaves, there's a connection between a new hire at the White House and congressional action on public nutrition programs. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, hired as chief of staff Renee Hudson, who held the same job with Indiana Rep. Todd Rokita, said the Washington Post. An advocate of school choice, Rokita was sponsor of the 2016 child nutrition bill that would have slashed a program allowing free meals for all students at schools in poor neighborhoods.

If they want to prevent cuts in the food-stamp program in the 2018 farm bill, nutrition and consumer groups need to know the language of crop subsidies, says Kathleen Merrigan, former deputy agriculture secretary. "Start educating yourselves about some other parts of the farm bill," she said, lamenting, "we don't really talk about a lot of these things that the people who really want to go after [food stamps] care about."

After two years of hearings on the "past, present and future" of food stamps, the premier U.S. antihunger program, the House Agriculture Committee chairman says states "must ensure those who can work do" so. "There is concern that general work requirements are not adequately enforced," said chairman Michael Conaway in a 66-page report, referring to provisions dating from 1971 that working-age recipients should register for work and accept a suitable job if it is offered.

In a step to mollify Capitol Hill, the USDA said that stores participating in the food-stamp program will have to stock a wider and deeper variety of healthy foods than they do now — but only half as many as it originally proposed. And USDA relented for the most part on a provision that would have barred retailers that sell a lot of hot food.

The election of Donald Trump means that environmentalists can forget about new, broader rules on land and water stewardship by farmers, said a prominent Republican farm leader. "Those new regulations are not going to happen," said Chuck Conner, who added that the 2018 farm bill would continue the system of incentives for voluntary action against erosion and polluted runoff.

Senior Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee stood firm against cuts in the food stamp program at the end of two-year review inaugurated by chairman Michael Conaway, a Texas Republican. The largest U.S. antihunger program is a popular target for Republicans, who say it costs too much — $74 billion in fiscal 2015 — because it provides benefits to too many people.

One-third of the 23 Democratic senators facing re-election in 2018 sit on the Agriculture Committee, including the panel's top Democrat, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, a stalwart defender of food stamps in the final negotiations for the 2014 farm law. President-elect Donald Trump carried four of the states where Ag Committee Democrats will have to decide soon whether to run for another term, a sign of Republican strength.

In statements to a campaign to end hunger and allieviate poverty, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said his proposals for economic growth will "create jobs and restore vitality to rural and urban pockets of poverty." Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton listed an array of programs to boost impoverished areas and their residents with the goal of cutting poverty in half in 10 years.

Despite the strong foundation of the farm sector, "it is clear financial stress is increasing and some producers are more exposed to financial risk," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in Senate testimony that balanced concern with falling farm income with a valedictory list of the administration's eight-year record in agriculture.

Donald Trump will not back a popular conservative proposal to split food stamps from the rest of the farm bill, said Sam Clovis, a senior advisor to the Republican presidential nominee. Speaking for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, former deputy agriculture secretary Kathleen Merrigan said food stamps are a key element of farm bills and Clinton would oppose cuts to the premiere U.S. anti-hunger program.