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HOUSE RULES BUDGET BILL STILL CONTAINS LARGE AND DAMAGING FOOD STAMP CUTS

RENEGES ON BUSH 2002 FARM BILL INITIATIVE FOR LEGAL IMMIGRANTS

 CUTS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS IN WORKING HOUSEHOLDS WITH CHILDREN

 TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN WILL LOSE FREE SCHOOL MEALS

 WILL SHIFT COSTS TO STATES, ADD TO ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLEXITY AND CLIENT CONFUSION  

HOUSE LEADERS’ MESSAGE FOR VETERANS DAY/THANKSGIVING SEASON?

DON’T FEED THE HUNGRY – CUT TAXES FOR THE RICH!  

The FY 2006 Budget Reconciliation Bill that the House Rules Committee approved late on November 9th still contains damaging food stamp cuts that will harm hundreds of thousands of people - - vulnerable legal immigrants and other working families with children.

Under the Bill as reported by the Rules Committee, the current five year bar on adult legal immigrants’ food stamp eligibility would be extended from five years to seven years unless a person were already receiving food stamps and either elderly or in process of naturalization. The minor exemptions added by Rules do little to ameliorate the harsh impact that CBO originally estimated for the House Agriculture Committee immigrant cuts ($275 million over five years cutting 70,000 legal immigrants in an average month).

Moreover, the largest single food stamp cut in the bill remains unchanged from the House Agriculture Committee version: it eliminates food stamps for 225,000 people in 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.

The Bill’s food stamp provisions 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 number of people facing hunger or food insecurity rose by almost two million between 2003 and 2004, the biggest increase in five years. The House cuts would make this problem even worse.

• The legal immigrant restrictions undo commitments made in 2002, are unrealistic and add administrative burdens . In 2002 Congress approved the Bush Administration proposal for a simple five year waiting period for adult legal immigrants. The Bush Administration argued against tying the benefit to 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.

• Cuts shift costs to states and undermine efficient operations: Congress should not shift to states the burden of plugging unwarranted new holes in the national nutrition safety net. 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.”

 For further questions and technical assistance, contact Ellen Vollinger at evollinger@frac.org.

Last updated 11/10/2005.