Budget plan cuts food stamps

Urbana lawmaker’s bill would tighten work requirements.

WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump’s budget would cut the federal food assistance program by 25 percent, and states such as Ohio will likely pick up some of the cost of the program.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which has also been known as food stamps, dates back to 1964 — though pilot programs existed before then. The program has been ripe for crit- icism, with fiscal conservatives worried that it gives the poor an excuse to rely on federal money rather than find a good job.

“Folks who are out there who are on food stamps and want to work, we’ll be able to work with them to solve the problem,” said White House budget director Mick Mulvaney. “They are not what’s causing the difficulties in SNAP. It’s the folks who are on there

who don’t want to work.”

In the 1990s, welfare reform included provisions that limited able-bodied adults from receiving food stamps for more than three months if they were not working at least 20 hours a week or participating in a work program.

But the $75 billion a year program, which now serves some 44 million people, doubled in cost during the recession, in part because some of the eligibility rules were expanded. The economy has recovered, but the costs have remained high for the program, which pays, on average, $1.40 per meal, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

“This is the first line of defense against hunger in our great country,” said Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. “It is a modest benefit that goes to feeding our most vulnerable.”

Mulvaney said while it’s reasonable to expect food stamp enrollment to go up during a recession, the economy has recovered. “Here we are, eight years removed from the end of the recession. We’ve had economic growth, albeit slow. We’re at what we consider to be full employment ... why is the number still high?”

He said it’s reasonable to ask whether there are people on the program who shouldn’t be.

“Shouldn’t it be up to the government to make sure we can look folks who are paying the taxes in the eye and say, you know what, we did everything we could to make sure that everybody on (Social Security Disability Insurance) is really disabled,” he said. “We don’t think that’s unreasonable. In fact, we think that is the definition of compassionate — a compassion that is balanced between the people who get the benefits and the people who pay them.”

President Trump’s budget plan would shift some of the cost of the program to states, reduce eligibility and beef up work requirements to save some $193 billion from the program over the next decade. While states now can apply for a waiver to the three-month rule in states that are particularly economically distressed, Trump’s budget would eliminate that waiver.

“It’s not a proposal that would help people work,” said Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the D.C.-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank aimed at reducing inequality and poverty. “It’s a proposal about punishing the unemployed.”

She dismisses the notion that people are staying out of the labor market in order to get food stamps. “I guess the question is whether $5 in food assistance a day is enough to keep you out of the labor market,” she said, adding that many of those who use the program are those earning low wages or those working sporadic hours. “No one would like to see more robust labor market than low skilled unemployed workers. They want jobs more than anyone else.”

Ohio impact

In Ohio, 729,178 households received the benefits in April of this year, with two-thirds of those recipients being children, elderly, or adults with disabilities.

Many in Congress, including Republicans, have dismissed Trump’s budget, saying it has little chance of becoming reality.

But Dean said the budget aligns with recent GOP congressional budget proposals. And Congress is set to take up the farm bill — which authorizes the nutrition assistance program — sometime this year.

Traditionally, the nutrition assistance program has been a key component of the farm bill, helping attract the support of urban lawmakers whose districts have little to do with agriculture. But the GOP leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have vowed to “take a look at our nutrition assistance programs,” though it’s unclear yet what that means.

“I don’t discount the notion that we could be in a year where there are deep, deep cuts to health and human services programs,” said Dean.

Jordan pushing bill to emphasize work

Local Congressman Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, is introducing a bill that would tighten the work requirements to 100 hours a month for able-bodied adults without dependents. The requirement is lower for those with children.

“All we’re talking about is incentivizing work,” he said, saying doing so helps the economy and the deficit. He and other conservatives are trying to link welfare reform to a tax reform bill. They say they’d be willing to accept a higher budget number if the tax bill included welfare reform.

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, said even as many depend on food assistance, employers complain about not being able to find employees willing to pass a drug test and show up.

“There’s a disconnect here,” he said. He cites work done by Ohio Auditor Dave Yost indicating there’s “a fair bit of fraud” in the food stamp program in the state.