Full Brunt of Cuts Falls on Low-income Households, None on Farm Subsidies

The Ryan budget plan that was approved by House Republicans a couple of weeks ago was just a general blueprint for the budget, with most of the details remaining to be worked out by various committees. Six committees in the House are now in the process of writing bills to cut $261 billion over 10 years from programs in their jurisdictions.

The House Agricultural Committee was assigned the responsibility to identify $33.2 billion of cuts, and the committee voted along party lines on Wednesday to take all of that amount (plus $2.6 billion more) from the nation’s key nutrition program – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – known in Wisconsin as Food Share, and formerly referred to as food stamps. The cut to SNAP will adversely affect 46.5 million low-income Americans each month, including 831,000 in Wisconsin.Republicans on the committee protected farm subsidies from any of the cuts, despite frequent calls for reform of those subsidies. An analysis of the Committee’s action by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes that 74% of the farm subsidies “go to the largest, most profitable farms, according to the Agriculture Department based on 2009 data. These large commercial farms received an average annual government payment of more than $30,000 a year in 2009, while having an average annual household income of over $160,000.”

The CBPP analysis says the cut to SNAP would have the following effects:

• 2 million individuals, disproportionately working families and seniors, would lose SNAP entirely. 
• The remaining 44 million individuals who receive SNAP would see their benefits cut (by, for example, $57 a month for a household of four).
• federal funding for SNAP employment and training programs would be cut by 72%.
• 280,000 children would lose free school meals along with their SNAP benefits.

These changes would increase poverty and hardship and are likely to harm the economy.  According to CBPP, the proposal would remove almost $8 billion from the economy between October 2012 and the end of 2013, at a time when the economic recovery is likely to remain fragile.  Cutting SNAP is especially unwise during such a period because mainstream economists agree that SNAP is one of the biggest “bang-for-the-buck” policies to improve a weak economy.

The $35.8 billion cut to SNAP would be on top of another proposal in the House budget to cut SNAP by $133 billion over the next decade and convert it to a block grant. 

Some argue that the cuts to SNAP and other programs for low-income Americans are needed to avoid automatic cuts to defense spending that are scheduled to occur next year because of the failure of the Congressional “supercommittee” last fall to come up with a broad deficit reduction package.  A short CBPP paper released Friday exposes the flaws in that argument. 

Jon Peacock