Conaway Defends Slashing Food Stamp Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Mike Conaway said the 2018 Farm Bill is “good governance.” The proposed bill, critics allege, is imposing onerous work requirements on recipients and slashing funding for food stamps. Food stamps, officially called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, consumes about 80 percent of the Farm Bill’s funding, this year set at around $100 billion.

Critics complain the 2018 bill was written behind closed doors without any input from congressmen in the Democratic Party. Right now, Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives with a 237 to 193 majority.

Conaway, who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, had the Farm Bill voted out of committee and the full House is expected to take action on it in early May.

Conaway’s Republican-controlled committee proposed slashing food stamps by $20 billion over the next 10 years. Critics expect more than 2 million current recipients of SNAP will be pushed off the program.

Conaway is defending the bill. On the Mike Adams Radio Show yesterday, Conaway noted that the “broad-based categorical eligibility” of SNAP, the way it is right now, allows people making $60,000 to $80,000 per year to obtain food stamps. “Defend that,” Conaway challenged the listeners. “We’ve got folks who qualify for SNAP in two different states. We can’t catch them right now,” he said. “Defend that.”

Conaway said the new SNAP in his committee’s markup will allow a family to accumulate $2,000 in savings that will not count against their asset test.

On work requirements, Conaway said the program already requires recipients to work 20 hours a week. The new bill increases that requirement to 25 hours a week over several years. View the requirements for receiving SNAP today here.

Listen to Mike Conaway on the Farm Bill here:
[[{"fid":"40692","view_mode":"wysiwyg","fields":{"format":"wysiwyg"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"wysiwyg"}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-wysiwyg","data-delta":"1"}}]]

About 13.5 percent of the U.S. population is on food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That equates to 40.7 million people as of April 6, 2018. SNAP participation spiked to 47.6 million people, or 15 percent of the population, in January 2013 right as President Barrack Obama was sworn in for his second term. The average SNAP participant received $125.50 each in food purchasing assistance in 2016. Source.

Some non-U.S. citizens are eligible for SNAP, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We came at this in the right way with the right heart. We’re trying to help people get off these programs. Get their lives back under their own control and who’s against that?” Conaway said of the 2018 Farm Bill.