The House Agriculture Committee has reported out its version of a new farm bill that will cut $16.5 billion over 10 years from funding of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), once known as food stamps.
The cuts in the House bill exceed those in the Senate bill by $12 billion.
Sixteen-and-a-half billion dollars over a decade amount to a whopping 2 percent cut in SNAP program expenditures, which last year alone came to $78 billion. At a time when we are running trillion-dollar annual federal budget deficits, it’s hard to see a 2 percent cut in any large spending program as provocative. Particularly in a program like SNAP, where spending in 2011 was over 400 percent higher than in 2000.
Yet, liberals are predictably ringing the alarm. Assistant House Democratic leader James Clyburn of South Carolina called the cuts “abominable,” suggesting they will jeopardize nutrition of children and that it’s all about protecting “the wealthy and the well to do.”
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