Agriculture Secretary Calls on Bush to Veto His Own Proposals

While the improvements made in the nutrition title of the Farm Bill may not (in their words to the press) make sense to USDA Secretary Ed Schafer and Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner, they certainly make sense to the tens of millions of Americans struggling against hunger who will benefit from higher food stamp allotments and improved access to the program.

Secretary Schafer feels that it “makes no sense” to include provisions that allow more poor people to qualify for food stamps because there are other poor people who are eligible for the program but not enrolled. In his opinion, any improvements to the program apparently should wait until all eligible people are enrolled. This opinion puts him at odds with the President, since it was the President who specifically asked Congress to include precisely these provisions that would no longer count retirement accounts and education accounts toward the asset limit and would exclude service members’ combat pay from countable income. In short, Schafer is effectively calling adoption of the President’s own eligibility proposals a reason to veto the Farm Bill.

Deputy Secretary Conner compounded the Secretary’s errors by misleading reporters about current food stamp benefits and their annual adjustment. He said that there is no need to increase and index food stamp benefit levels – which currently average a $1 per person per meal – since food stamp allotments will get a slight boost in October under current law. The program is not fully indexed, however, so the October increase would not make beneficiaries whole. It is the nutrition title of the Farm Bill, by indexing the minimum benefit, the standard deduction and the assets test, which makes the program more fully adjust for inflation. Amid the accelerating food price inflation occurring on Secretary Schafer and Deputy Secretary Conner’s watch, a veto would worsen people’s struggles.

The Farm Bill contains a strong nutrition title that will provide needed improvements to the Food Stamp Program and The Emergency Food Assistance Program for food banks, and help the millions of Americans struggling to stretch limited budgets amid record high food costs.

In a call with reporters earlier today, Secretary Schafer suggested that the veto might well be overridden. His and Chuck Conner’s comments are inadvertently helping to build the case for Congress to do just that.