This was a hard season for those Americans who are struggling to buy groceries. Last month, the long lines at food pantries across the US grew longer with the expiration of the boost to food stamp benefit levels included in the 2009 economic stimulus plan. The House Republicans refused to prolong extended unemployment benefits as part of the recent budget deal. The Congress is getting ready to make another big cut to nutrition aid when it returns in early January – as if the measures mentioned above are not enough.
Senators are working on a deal on a farm bill that is expected to include an increase in crop insurance subsidies for farmers and a more than $8 billion cut in food stamp benefits for the poor over the next 10 years.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, that austerity measure is more modest than the devastating $40 billion reduction in the farm bill passed by House Republicans that would have deprived about 3.8 million people of benefits in 2014. The House bill would also impose drug-testing, work requirements and other conditions, which are not expected to be included in the compromise bill. Still, the compromise deal, driven by the Republican obsession with cutting the food stamps program, will leave many Americans, disabled included, worse off than ever.
The households affected currently receive higher food stamp benefits (on average around $90 a month) under a practice known as “heat-and-eat,” which is meant to prevent the poor from choosing between heating fuel and food.
The proposed Senate-House deal would require states to pay $20 a year to trigger the higher benefits. Some states will likely decline to increase their subsidies to that amount, so to achieve the bill’s projected savings, benefits would have to be taken away from many poor families.
The right fix would be to take any savings and devote it along with other new financing to make sure the basic food needs of the poorest families are satisfied. Some Democratic lawmakers and anti-hunger advocates claim the cut which is being contemplated in the compromise deal is necessary so that the food stamps program to be reauthorized by both the Senate and House. That will keep the cuts to an affordable level which would be a political disaster for right-wing Republicans, who were willing to bring much more damage. Whether it is true or not, the people lining up at food pantries as their inadequate monthly food stamps allotment has run out have little concern about the whole polemics.
Voice of Russia, The New York Times
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