House GOP, Daines approve $39 billion food stamp cut

Source: Billings Gazette, Mont.迷你倉Sept. 20--A U.S. House vote Thursday to cut an estimated 3 million poor people from federal food stamp rolls was a necessary step toward passing a five-year farm bill, U.S. Rep. Steve Daines said.Daines, Montana's only congressman, voted with fellow Republicans to cut federal food subsidies by an estimated $39 billion over the next 10 years. The number of Americans using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, has skyrocketed since the recession started. The proposal by Republican House leaders would bring about a significant food stamp reduction by changing enrollment terms. Democrats and 15 moderate Republicans opposed the bill.Currently, 48 million Americans use food stamps. In Montana, about 123,000, or one in eight people, rely on food subsidies. Most households using food stamps include young children, a senior citizen or someone with disabilities.Under the plan, roughly 2.8 million people would be pushed out the food stamp program right away, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Another 850,000 households would see their average monthly benefits of $290 a month cut by $90. Another 210,000 children would no longer be eligible for free and reduced school lunches.The food stamp vote was the final piece of the House 2013 farm bill. Without it, the already one-year delayed farm bill would have probably stalled until 2014.A conference committee will have to reconcile differences between farm bills authored by the House and Senate, which passed its version of the farm bill in June. The two bodies will then have to agree on a final version. "It's an important step forward for the farm bill to get us toward our goal of passing a five-year solution," Daines said. "The end goal has always been to take a House farm bill and a Senate farm bill to conference so we can get to a five-year solution."Agreement may be tough as food stamp cuts proposed by the Democratic-controlled Senate were $4.5 billion.The vote follows a months-long debate about government aid for the nation's poorest citizens. Disagreements over food stamp funding thwarted a June attempt to pass a bi-partisan farm bill in the House. Republican leaders decided to pull nutrition programs from the bill and vote on them separately. The moved allowed for cuts twice迷你倉最平as deep as those originally proposed to be passed along party lines.Private organizations working with the poor said that with less federal food assistance, poor families are certain to look for more private aid that in some cases charities don't have.The number of single mothers looking for food assistance at the Catholic charity Angela's Piazza in Billings has increased since the recession. Associate Director Amy Aguirre expects the need for food will only go up if food stamps are cut."Many of the women who come to Angela's Piazza are low-income. I'm very familiar with the things they have to cope with day to day and they do benefit from food stamps," Aguirre said.In a typical month, Aguirre might round up 700 pounds of food for women who turn to Angela's Piazza for help with addiction or domestic violence. Aguirre said 85 percent of the women Piazza helps are single mothers. A cut in food stamps will only make it more difficult for those women to cover utilities and pay for rent as more of their money must be spent on food.Food pantries say they are ill-prepared for increased grocery demand from poor people pushed from food stamps or simply receiving less support. The nation's largest food bank organization, Feeding America, says the cut in federal food aid is equivalent to losing 1.5 billion meals in 2014. Those cuts, combined with reductions already scheduled to occur in November, will take more meals from the poor than Feeding American's 61,000 pantries currently offer.Daines said the House-approved cut represents a slight percent reduction in the food stamp program. Republicans' intent is to rid the food stamp program of "waste, fraud and abuse," he said, namely by eliminating food stamp policy that automatically grants eligibility to poor people who already qualify for other forms of public assistance."Overall, if you look on the national level, it's about a 5 percent reduction," Daines said. "That's in the context that food stamps have increased 150 percent in the last six years. And we're talking about a 5 percent decrease. Many Montanans rely on food stamps and we have our challenge of Montanans who need help."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 Billings Gazette (Billings, Mont.) Visit the Billings Gazette (Billings, Mont.) at .billingsgazette.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉