WASHINGTON (CN) — With just weeks to go before a federal farm subsidy bill is set to expire, House Democrats are concerned that meddling from Republican leadership over food aid could put a renewal vote on the ropes, they told House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Monday.
As they left Washington for Congress’ annual August recess, lawmakers on the House Agriculture Committee hit pause on this year’s farm bill, omnibus legislation that is traditionally renewed every five years or so. While the farm bill usually includes agricultural subsidies and conservation programs, it is also the measure that authorizes a slew of federal food benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Those benefits are one of many federal programs that have been in McCarthy’s crosshairs since he became House speaker in January, as he seeks to use his pulpit to slash government spending. The GOP leader managed to secure changes to SNAP as part of his June debt ceiling compromise with the White House, expanding the number of Americans who must work at least 20 hours a week to qualify for food stamps.
Now, some top House Republicans have signaled support for even tighter SNAP restrictions to be included in the farm bill’s renewal. Democrats warned Speaker McCarthy in a letter Monday that such a strategy could threaten the historically bipartisan agricultural legislation, pointing out that previous iterations of the bill had stumbled because of partisan squabbling.
“You have seen what happens when leadership gets involved in dictating the details of the farm bill, particularly when the issue involved is SNAP, the safety net for America’s working poor and elderly,” wrote the cadre of lawmakers led by Georgia Democrat David Scott, the agriculture committee’s ranking member.
Recalling farm bill negotiations in 2014 and 2018, during which the House failed to pass the legislation on its first try, the lawmakers told McCarthy that he should keep Republican leadership on a shorter leash. “[P]laying partisan SNAP politics does nothing to address the needs of our farm and ranch families who depend on the other components of the farm bill,” they wrote in the letter.
House Democrats also appealed to the farm bill’s bipartisan nature, arguing that the agriculture panel’s Republican chair, Pennsylvania Representative Glenn Thompson, has said that he would be willing to reach across the aisle while negotiating the bill and would not attempt to further tighten SNAP requirements.
“The continued threat of making additional changes to SNAP eligibility or benefits is not helpful and even undermines Chairman Thompson as he works with his Democratic and Republican membership to bring a bipartisan farm bill out of the agriculture committee,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Democrats urged McCarthy to leave the panel alone as it continues work on the farm bill and asked him to “respect the product that we hope comes out of our process later this fall.”
Democratic lawmakers have been firm since the June debt ceiling compromise that they would accept no further changes to federal nutrition assistance.
“[A]s far as I am concerned, the issue of work requirements is settled for this Congress,” said Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, in a statement. Stabenow and other Democrats were disappointed with the Biden administration for bending to Republican pressure on SNAP eligibility requirements — although the resulting compromise was decidedly tamer than stiff restrictions proposed in April by Republicans’ House-passed debt ceiling bill.
According to spending projections released in May by the Congressional Budget Office, the 2023 farm bill would need to authorize roughly $605 billion for SNAP benefits for a five-year period ending in 2028. The total required budget outlay for the program to run through 2033 would be more than $1.2 trillion, the independent federal auditor reported.
When the House returns from its August recess on Sept. 12, it will have only a few weeks to turn around a new farm bill; the current measure expires Sept. 30. Lawmakers may vote to extend the current agricultural measure while they negotiate the newest iteration.
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