Dems Fight Efforts to Cut Food Stamps

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Dems Fight Efforts to Cut Food Stamps

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100605S.shtml

 

Dems Fight Efforts to Cut Food Stamps

By Libby Quaid

The Associated Press

Thursday 06 October 2005

Democrats are fighting attempts to make cuts in food stamps and conservation

programs at a time when people are coping with hurricanes and drought.

" Right now the difference between life and death for many Americans is the

food stamp program, " said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. " We should not, we cannot,

cut the very nutritional programs that are literally saving lives. "

A Republican plan to cut agriculture spending by $3 billion had been

scheduled for a vote Thursday in the Senate Agriculture Committee, but the

panel's chairman, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., put off the vote indefinitely

late Wednesday.

Chambliss said Thursday he didn't have enough support from committee members

for extending the dairy price-support program at the expense of other payments

to farmers. The American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest general farm group,

opposes the dairy program's extension.

" We don't think it's fair that you help one commodity at the expense of

other commodities, " Farm Bureau lobbyist Mary Kay Thatcher said, citing the

dairy program's $1 billion cost.

The plan would extend a federal dairy price-support program, the Milk Income

Loss Contract program, but reduce the amount of money dairy farmers would

receive from it.

It would impose a 2.5 percent reduction in subsidies, affect all payments

and marketing loan gains for producers of corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton

and other subsidized crops as well as dairy.

Payments to farmers would fall by $1.145 billion over five years. Still, it

is much less severe than what President Bush had proposed. He sought a 5 percent

reduction in payments, plus a far-reaching plan for capping payments that would

cut billions more dollars from subsidies collected by large farm operations.

Chambliss intended to propose aid for farmers battered by hurricanes and

drought in the coming weeks, after damage is fully assessed, spokesman Keith

Williams said Wednesday.

The bill by Chambliss would cut food programs for the poor by $574 million

and conservation programs and farm payments by more than $1 billion each.

The budget-cutting plan faces opposition from Democrats and others.

" This proposal is an unconscionable slap in the face at America's poor, "

said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the senior Democrat on the committee.

The $574 million cut in food stamps would come from restricting access to

this benefit for certain families that, because they receive other government

assistance, receive food stamps without going through the application process.

The restriction would shut an estimated 300,000 people out of the program.

Chambliss' spokesman said the change would apply to families that do not meet

eligibility requirements and that eligible families still will receive food

stamps.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, are

pushing for Bush's payment limits, which would eliminate loopholes that let

bigger growers collect unlimited payments.

Effective payment limits would cut spending enough to spare nutrition and

conservation programs, said Chuck Hassebrook, director of the Lyons, Neb.-based

Center for Rural Affairs.

" All they really meant was, 'We're not going to cut the big guys; we're

going to cut family farms and conservation,' " he said.

Congress ordered the $3 billion in cuts in a budget outline passed this

year.

At the time, leading Republicans indicated they would rather target food

stamps and conservation programs than simply make the deep cuts that Bush was

seeking. The administration backed off its plan to cap payments in April after

strong opposition from farmers. Cotton and rice growers would bear the brunt of

payment limits.

Chambliss wants the cuts in farmers' payments to be distributed evenly among

all commodities, his spokesman said.

Also under fire were $1.05 billion in conservation cuts that would trim

programs that pay farmers to stop farming certain land or to change their

practices to help the environment.

" Subsidies get $20 billion a year. Conservation gets less than $4 billion -

to expect farmers who want to help the environment to shoulder as heavy a load

as fat-cat cotton producers is terrible policy, " said Scott Faber, spokesman for

the Washington-based Environmental Defense.

The cuts in payments are not enough to aid US negotiators in global trade

talks being held by the World Trade Organization, said Ken Cook, president of

Environmental Working Group. Developing countries are insisting that wealthy

nations cut subsidies in exchange for access to their markets.

" It is a slap in the face to the poorest countries in the world, " Cook said.

 

 

On the Web:

Senate Agriculture Committee: http://agriculture.senate.gov/.

 

 

 

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