Senate committee slashes food aid, again [View all]

[ProSense]

Senate committee slashes food aid, again

by Joan McCarter

The Senate Agriculture Committee completed work on the 2013 Farm Bill Tuesday, and took another big and totally unnecessary whack at food aid, again. They voted to cut the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, by $4.1 billion.

That's nothing compared to what the House has in mind: $21 billion in cuts to SNAP. But it's still too much and it's still unnecessary and wrong-headed. CBPP estimates that cuts as large as what the House is calling for would eliminate food aid to two million people, many families with children and the elderly. What the Senate Democrats should be doing to counter the House is to propose increases to food aid.

It's particularly ironic that the Ag committee would vote for these deeper food aid cuts on the very day that the CBO released a new report estimating that the deficit for this year will $200 billion below the estimate that it produced in February 2013. If a moral and ethical argument for maintaining food assistance at at least current levels won't work to convince Senate Democrats to restore funding, maybe the CBO will.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/14/1209093/-Senate-committee-slashes-food-aid-nbsp-again

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday approved a five-year farm bill on a 15-5 vote.

Four Republicans voted against the bill — Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), and John Thune (S.D.). Liberal Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) also voted "no."

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/agriculture/299555-senate-begins-markup-of-955-billion-farm-bill

Committee membership: http://www.ag.senate.gov/about