Home > Take Action > Action Alert - 11/15/05

Your efforts and those of colleagues across the country are making a real difference in protecting food stamps and other supports for struggling working families. Last Thursday, short of enough votes to pass the FY 2006 Budget Reconciliation package, House Republican Leaders “pulled” the bill from the floor. Therefore, the House did not slash food stamps for 300,000 people. Opposition to the food stamp cuts played an important role in this.

That’s the good news. Now for the bad: it appears likely that the Leaders will again try to bring the budget package in some form to the House floor later this week.

Our continued, collective opposition to the budget package is vital to protect food stamps and other help for vulnerable people. Don’t let Congress’ Thanksgiving holiday greeting to needy people be nutrition cuts!

Message and Action Needed:

• Urge Your U.S. Representative to “VOTE NO” ON BUDGET RECONCILIATION AND SPEAK OUT AGAINST ANY FOOD STAMP CUTS. The regular U.S. Capitol switchboard number is 202-225-3121.

• On Wednesday and Thursday, November 16 and 17, join the Nationwide Call-in Days to Save Vital Services--call your U.S. Representative at 800-426-8073 (a toll-free line that will connect to the U.S. Capitol switchboard courtesy of the American Friends Service Committee).

• Let your local media and others know that cutting food stamps is a terrible Thanksgiving Day season step. Invite reporters and opinion leaders to emergency feeding sites that serve holiday meals. Write letters to the editor to ask how Congress can even think about cutting food stamp benefits when so many families are already worried about where they will get their next meal. Urge your newspapers to focus their pre-Thanksgiving editorials on the threats to food stamps.

Below you will find background on the proposed food stamp cuts, links to resources, talking points, and contacts for technical assistance.

What’s at Stake?

The FY 2006 Budget Reconciliation Bill that the House Rules Committee approved late on November 9th and which then was pulled back on November 10th contained damaging food stamp cuts that would harm hundreds of thousands of people--vulnerable legal immigrants and other working families with children. It also contains damaging cuts to Medicaid, child support enforcement, student aid, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). And following these cuts to programs for working people would be big tax cuts for wealthy people.

Under the Bill as reported by the House Rules Committee, the current five year bar on food stamp eligibility would be extended from five years to seven years for most adult legal immigrants. The only exceptions would be if the person were already receiving food stamps and either elderly or in process of naturalization. The minor exemptions added at the last minute to address criticism of the immigrant cut do little to ameliorate the harsh impact that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) originally estimated. CBO estimates the change will help one out of fourteen of those immigrants otherwise hurt by the bill—and even that tiny change doesn’t occur after the first year, so the bill still cuts 70,000 legal immigrants in an average month in the later years. 

Moreover, the largest single food stamp cut in the bill remains wholly unchanged from the earlier version: it eliminates food stamps for 225,000 people in low-income working households with children who receive services like child care, but not cash grants, under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Program.  And in turn it will raise school lunch fees or keep from eligibility many needy children in those families whose food stamp status now results in direct certification for free school meals. 

Outlook—Cuts Are Not Inevitable

These cuts are unwise and unnecessary. The FY 2006 Budget Reconciliation Bill that passed the Senate contained no food stamp cuts. Moreover, budget reconciliation is not a process that is required. Government operations can continue without its completion. Congress can—and should—abandon budget reconciliation altogether.

The situation is fluid. House Republican Leaders may bring up a budget package—possibly revised—with little notice. FRAC will update you on developments as they occur via e-mail and postings to our web site (www.frac.org).

Talking Points:

The FY 2006 House Budget Reconciliation Bill’s food stamp cuts should be rejected:

• Food stamp cuts at a time of rising hunger? The House “reconciliation bill” includes over $800 million in food stamp cuts that all come from terminating low-income people’s benefits.  The House Agriculture Committee approved these cuts on the very day the Census Bureau and USDA reported that food insecurity in America has grown for five years straight.   Nearly 11 million people lived in households that experienced hunger in 2004, and over 38 million lived in households that were “food insecure” — a government measure of the number of people who have difficulty meeting their food budgets. The House cuts would make this problem even worse.

• The legal immigrant restrictions undo commitments made in 2002, are unfair and unrealistic and add administrative burdens. Since 1996 the cuts made to food stamps for legal immigrants have caused widespread and food insecurity. In 2002 Congress approved the Bush Administration proposal to ameliorate this by creating a five year waiting period for adult legal immigrants rather than permanent exclusion.  The Bush Administration argued against tying the benefit to a citizenship application because it is unwieldy and expensive.  In addition, the Administration was not anxious to place more burdens on an already overworked US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS).  Currently, it is not clear that USCIS even has the capacity to verify for state food stamp agencies that applicants have applied for citizenship.  The federal government should not renege on the commitments made in 2002.  The new wrinkle added by the Rules Committee does not change the fundamental harshness of the immigrant provisions of the House bill.  Rather it complicates eligibility for states and hungry people.

• Food stamp cuts shift costs to states and undermine efficient operations:  Congress should not shift to states the burden of plugging complicated new holes in the national nutrition safety net for needy people.  Moreover, Congress should not lightly change options upon which states have planned their program operations.  In addition to the benefit dollars the cuts will cost families, the cuts will impact state administrative operations, forcing states to change rules, forms and computer programs, retrain caseworkers, and clarify eligibility information for clients.         

• Private charities can’t fill the gap:  High energy costs, high housing costs and flagging wages have forced many low-income families to turn to private charities like food banks for help.  Food banks are already straining to keep up with this demand, and many have to turn away families in need.  America’s Second Harvest---The Nation’s Food Bank Network— has said in response to the proposed House cuts that food banks “can not begin to fill in the gaping hole left by food stamp cuts, particularly in a time when the United States is experiencing significant increases in hunger and food insecurity.”

Resource Links

For the latest food stamp caseload trends for the U.S., 50 states and District of Columbia, go to http://www.frac.org/html/news/fsp/05.08_FSP.html

For information on hunger and food insecurity in the U.S. and all states, go to http://www.frac.org/Press_Release/10.28.05.html and http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err11/err11appD.pdf, respectively.

For opposition to food stamp cuts from state administrators, go to http://www.aphsa/org/home/Doc/Food-Stamps-Fact-Sheet.pdf

For background on the non-nutrition program portions of the proposed budget bill as well as information on proposed tax cuts, check the web sites of the Coalition on Human Needs (www.chn.org) and the Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities (www.actnow.org).

Additional Assistance and Feedback

FRAC staff can provide technical assistance and sample materials, including help in submitting Thanksgiving themed op-eds and letters to the editor. For additional assistance or feedback, contact evollinger@frac.org, eteller@frac.org or ichavez@frac.org.

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