Washington – House GOP Considers Food Stamp Work Requirements

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    Washington – About 47 million Americans received food stamps last year, but only a relative few are required to work or look for a job as a condition of receiving the aid.

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    Now, House Republicans are considering whether the work requirement should be strengthened as they seek cuts to the $80 billion-a-year program, which has doubled in cost over the last five years.

    A small group of GOP lawmakers was expected to meet Wednesday to discuss trimming the program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. It was unclear whether they would be able to agree on an approach before Congress leaves town for their August recess.

    The push to pass a food stamp bill came after House GOP leaders stripped the feeding programs from a farm bill that passed the chamber earlier this month following the defeat of a combined food-farm bill. Conservatives had demanded greater cuts in the food stamp program.

    A work requirement was raised during House debate on the combined food-farm bill.

    The House approved an amendment by Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., that would have allowed — but not required — individual states to test work requirements. But a more far-reaching amendment that would have cut $3 billion a year from the program and required most able-bodied adults to work to receive benefits was rejected. Many moderate Republicans opposed that amendment, proposed by Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.

    Southerland says his work requirement proposal makes sense because it is optional for states and doesn’t cut dollars for the program.

    “I think you have to have moral reformation before you have fiscal reformation,” he says.

    The concept of requiring food stamp recipients is not new. The 1996 welfare law laid out work requirements for some able-bodied adults who don’t have dependents. However, the 2009 stimulus law and waivers allowed by the Obama administration have suspended those requirements in most states.

    Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday that in looking at deeper work requirements, Republicans are ignoring who actually gets food stamps. He said 92 percent of recipients are children, the elderly, disabled or people who are already working.

    Vilsack called the Southerland amendment “arbitrary” and said it would make more sense to improve state employment and training programs that help SNAP recipients find and keep jobs.

    Another proposal favored by some Republicans, including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, is to turn all of the federal SNAP money over to the states and cap it. Ryan’s budget also proposed a cut of around $13 billion a year to food stamps. But those so-called “block grants” to states may be too much of a cut for the more moderate members of the GOP caucus.

    Regardless of the approach, any bill passed by the conservative House will be difficult to reconcile with the Senate version of the farm bill, which keeps all of the programs together and makes only a half-percent cut to food stamps. Strong objections in the Democratic-led Senate chamber and in the Obama administration will make it difficult for anything the Republicans propose to become law.

    If the two chambers cannot agree, which seems a very possible scenario, Congress may have to extend current farm law — and current levels of spending for food stamps — a second time. The law originally expired last September and was extended as part of a larger New Year’s deal on the so-called fiscal cliff.

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have said they will not pass another extension. But it may be the only option for farm programs that would be eliminated otherwise.

    In remarks on the House floor last Friday, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., would not say how he expects leaders to proceed on a food stamp bill, except to say they were working on it.

    “We intend to proceed deliberately, looking at policies that make sense in reforming these programs in the vein of trying to get to those most vulnerable the relief they need, at the same time paying cognizance to the fact that we have fiscal challenges we must deal with,” Cantor said.


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    12 Comments
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    Realistic
    Realistic
    10 years ago

    Would that mean that if someone is unemployed he won’t qualify?
    The current system (in NY) requires you to work, but one or two re certifications could pass by saying I’m looking for a job.

    So how would this be different?

    Facts1
    Facts1
    10 years ago

    Yes way to go, target the poor, snoop on you citizens, incarcerate the innocent, and hand out years of torture in Jail holes for technical crimes.

    Where is the USA heading too?

    ayoyo
    ayoyo
    10 years ago

    and the old people who cant afford to buy proper food —send them to work?
    according to halacha a rich person that became poor has to be given the same food that he ate when he had money.

    CEDARHURST
    CEDARHURST
    10 years ago

    the heimish version is shnoring at a kiddush on shabbas!
    It wonderful oneg to eat eat great food for free!!!

    10 years ago

    In the Heimeshe community, strict enforcement of this rule would provide an incentive to either c’v go to work and earn a parnassah or equally repugnant, perhaps consider your economic ability to support to feed, house and educate your children BEFORE deciding to have MORE children. Unfortunately, too many yidden believe that food stamps and welfare (in combination with wealthy in-laws) are the Ebeshter’s way of encouraging them to sit around in kollel without a job while having out more babies. Some frum girls would rather their parents support some guy without a job who sits in kollel than a hard-working normal bochur who lives a balanced life and works hard to feed his family while also finding time to learn.