Congress About To Slash Food Stamps in Favor of Corporate Farming Subsidies
by Mike Owen

At the Farm Bill hearing in Des Moines last week with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, at least four speakers in the first 55 minutes of testimony stood up to support Food Stamps against exorbitant farm payments – not that you’d know it from the media coverage.

George W. Bush proposed $600 million in Food Stamp cuts as part of $9 billion in Ag cuts — 7 percent.  Congress knocked down the Ag figure to $3 billion.  Any amount of Food Stamp cuts is indefensible in the face of tax cuts for the wealthy (and more tax cuts are coming, folks).  Using the Bush’s own 7 percent standard, the Food Stamp cuts should be no more than $200 million.

There are those who would make all or most of the Ag cuts come from Food Stamps; there are serious efforts to make it $2 billion – two-thirds of the Ag cuts.  Both Senator Harkin and Senator Grassley are on the Ag Committee and favor holding down the Food Stamp cuts — in fact, payment limits are a big issue for Grassley, who will have a pivotal role as Finance chair and a majority member of the Ag Committee for whatever happens with both Food Stamps and Medicaid.

In addition, there are efforts to block-grant Food Stamps or make other changes in the structure of the program that would allow states to gut Food Stamps – this is an assault on the concept of a national safety net.

Time is short – but there is time to write letters and make calls, and to raise the visibility of critical issues affecting the most vulnerable Iowans.

For Iowa-oriented information about the federal budget issues, see the Iowa Fiscal Partnership site and the Iowa Human Needs Advocates site. Also, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has good information from Kids Count. And check out the Center for Rural Affairs.