There’s a lot of “stuff” embedded in the massive piece of legislation known as the “farm bill,” and one of the most important—especially to the 40 million Americans who rely on it—is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, previously known as food stamps. Some Republicans, fresh off a victory on tax cuts, want to pay for those cuts by slashing benefits to working people and the poor.
Rebecca Vallas, Vice President of the Poverty Program at the Center for American Progress has been following the progress of a House version of the Farm Bill along with the broader rightwing push for “work requirements.” Below is a summary of her comments she made to Sarah Jaffe about how an ugly version of the farm bill was defeated and how SNAP might be saved.
The SNAP program helps about 40 million Americans put food on the table in any given month. The benefits are extremely meager: just $1.40 per person per meal. Imagine that as your food budget.
The House version of the Farm Bill, which went up in flames last week, would have made that already meager program harder to access. SNAP is a program where families already, by and large, report running out of food by the third week in the month. These are people who are struggling to find work or can’t get enough hours in their job. That is who would be most hurt by this proposal.
Last week we saw total unity among Democrats. We saw every single Democrat in the House saying, “This is a heartless bill that I can’t vote for.”
The Republican caucus was in real disarray. They couldn't quite seem to agree on how heartless they want to be. We saw the bill literally go down in the middle of the voting. It seemed like the Republicans were unaware that they didn’t have the votes to pass the bill. They were split between those wanting to see a bill be even harsher and more moderate Republicans saying, “this is going to be bad for me in November.”
But the Democrats were lockstep: “No, I can’t vote for a piece of legislation that takes food away from as many as two million Americans.”
Two-thirds of this country do not want to see cuts to nutrition assistance, including food stamps.
The Center for American Progress did some polling earlier this year and found that cuts to nutrition assistance are wildly unpopular, including with Republicans. Two-thirds of this country do not want to see cuts to nutrition assistance, including food stamps.
Traditionally, the bill is bipartisan but this time we saw House Republicans draft the bill without any input from Democrats, not letting them be at the table at all, which is something that is very unusual, and ultimately, what caused it to go down on the floor.
We also saw the House Freedom Caucus, yet again, showing that they have tremendous control over House Republicans.
But a big part of the story is that the Democrats were completely unified in their opposition.
There was also tremendous mobilization from pretty much every corner of the progressive community telling members of Congress: “Hands off SNAP!”
The concept of so-called “work requirements” is really a misnomer. What work requirements really are is harsh time limits on assistance for people who are already struggling because they can’t get enough hours at their job or who can’t find work. Republicans like Paul Ryan know “work requirements” sounds good on its face: the idea of working in exchange for something. But below the surface the approach increases barriers to food support among the elderly, people with children, and people who are already working two or three jobs but aren't paid enough to keep food on the table.
We've spoken previously about Medicaid, which is another space where the right has really latched onto the concept of work requirements. They realize in their efforts last year to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to dismantle Medicaid, that it was going to be a lot harder than they thought but they were likely to have a lot more luck going after Medicaid if they made it about so-called “work requirements.” Trump now is allowing states to take away healthcare from people who can’t find a job or get enough hours to work. That is why we are seeing work requirements as a cornerstone of their agenda.
Listen to the full interview here:
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