House Ag Advances Budget Bill That Cuts SNAP Spending

By Ryan Hanrahan

Politico’s Grace Yarrow reported Wednesday night that “the House Agriculture Committee voted 29-25 along party lines to advance legislation that would cut as much as $300 billion in food aid spending to pay for Republicans’ domestic policy megabill and some farm bill programs.”

“The Wednesday vote sends the measure to the House Budget Committee for consideration before a full floor vote in the chamber on the bill,” Yarrow reported. “The GOP proposal would create the largest overhaul in decades to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps more than 42 million people in the U.S. pay for food, by forcing states to share the cost of SNAP benefits.”

“The proposal establishes a cost-sharing approach for states with a baseline of 5% of SNAP benefit costs and using a sliding scale based on their payment error rates,” Yarrow reported. “Beginning in fiscal year 2028, states with payment error rates of 6–8% would pay for 15% of SNAP, states with error rates of 8–10% would pay for 20% and those with error rates above 10% are on the hook for 25% of benefits.”

“The House Budget Committee will mark up the full reconciliation bill on Friday at 9 a.m. as Republicans look to fast-track their massive cuts and policy agenda,” Yarrow reported.

All Democrat Amendments Failed

Agri-Pulse’s Rebekah Alvey reported that during the markup on Wednesday, “Republicans voted down a series of Democratic amendments targeting the SNAP provisions, including one by Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., that would have blocked implementation of the entire SNAP subtitle ‘until certified by USDA and all States that it will not result in a reduction in SNAP benefits or participation.’”

“An Agri-Pulse analysis of fiscal year 2023 federal SNAP spending in each state and 2023 error rates found that some states, red and blue, would face over $1 billion in costs under this proposal,” Alvey reported.

“Democrats offered a number of amendments seeking to repeal portions of the SNAP cuts. One major topic focused on changes to work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents,” Alvey reported. “The bill would increase the age limit from 54 to 64. It would also require parents or guardians of children aged 7 years old and up meet the 80 hours per month requirement, a proposal Democrats highlighted.”

“Chair Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., defended the measures arguing that most children this age are in school, which gives guardians the ability to work,” Alvey reported. “Still, the committee’s ranking member, Angie Craig, D-Minn., and other Democrats called this proposal one of the most ‘egregious’ parts of the bill.”

Farm Safety Net Provisions Remain

Yarrow reported that “the anticipated $300 billion in savings from SNAP spending exceeds the committee’s instructed target of $230 billion in spending cuts, giving House Republicans enough wiggle room to include a $60 billion farm bill package in their megabill — a critical incentive for committee Republicans to advance the legislation.”

Agri-Pulse’s Philip Brasher and Alvey reported in a different article that “the bill’s agriculture provisions would increase Price Loss Coverage reference prices by 10–20%, in line with the farm bill the committee approved a year ago. The bill also would increase the Agriculture Risk Coverage guarantee to 90% and allow producers to enroll as many as 30 million new base acres that would be eligible for PLC or ARC coverage.”

“The individual limit for commodity program payments would be increased from $125,000 to $155,000 and indexed to inflation. For crop insurance, the premium subsidy for the supplemental coverage option would be raised from 65% to 80%,” Brasher and Alvey reported. “The bill also would bring Inflation Reduction Act conservation funding into the farm bill baseline but remove requirements that limited the funding to climate-smart practices.”

“Funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program would rise from $2.66 billion in fiscal year 2026 to $3.26 billion in year 2031. Funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program would go from $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2026 to $1.38 billion in year 2031,” Brasher and Alvey reported. “Trade promotion programs also would get $489.5 million a year through 2031, under the bill. Of that amount, $400 million a year would go to the Market Access Program. The Foreign Market Development would be funded at $69 million a year.”

House Ag Advances Budget Bill That Cuts SNAP Spending was originally published by Farmdoc.