bra_man69
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Democrats failed Wednesday to block cuts to the food stamp program as the House Agriculture Committee moved ahead on a half-trillion-dollar bill to fund farm and nutrition programs over the next five years. Similarly, a Republican attempt to make deeper cuts to the program was defeated.
The program that helps feed 46 million people at a cost of nearly $80 billion a year, about 80 percent of farm bill spending, was the dominant issue as committee members tried to advance one of the larger and more expensive bills that Congress is taking up this year.
The committee's draft measure would save $3.5 billion a year from current spending levels through such steps as ending the practice of direct payments for inactive farmers and consolidating conservation programs. Of that, $1.6 billion in savings would come from tightening eligibility rules and ending abuses in the food stamp program.
The Senate version of the farm bill passed last month on a bipartisan vote would save about $2.3 billion a year, with $400 million coming from the food stamp program. The House and Senate must reach a compromise before the current farm bill expires at the end of September.
The panel defeated, on a 31-15 vote, a proposal by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., that would have eliminated all the proposed cuts to food stamps, which he said would "literally take food away from hungry people."
But Republicans pointed to the sharp rise in food stamp beneficiaries, from 19 million in 2002 to 46 million a decade later.
Later, half of the 26 Republicans on the committee joined Democrats in a 33-13 vote to defeat an amendment by Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., to double the food stamp cuts.
Several Republicans acknowledged that deeper cuts would make it harder to reach a compromise with the Democratic-led Senate. Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Midland, said, "We will have squandered our one really good chance of getting beyond" the level of cuts in the Senate bill, which would trim food stamp spending by $400 million a year.
Democrats failed Wednesday to block cuts to the food stamp program as the House Agriculture Committee moved ahead on a half-trillion-dollar bill to fund farm and nutrition programs over the next five years. Similarly, a Republican attempt to make deeper cuts to the program was defeated.
The program that helps feed 46 million people at a cost of nearly $80 billion a year, about 80 percent of farm bill spending, was the dominant issue as committee members tried to advance one of the larger and more expensive bills that Congress is taking up this year.
The committee's draft measure would save $3.5 billion a year from current spending levels through such steps as ending the practice of direct payments for inactive farmers and consolidating conservation programs. Of that, $1.6 billion in savings would come from tightening eligibility rules and ending abuses in the food stamp program.
The Senate version of the farm bill passed last month on a bipartisan vote would save about $2.3 billion a year, with $400 million coming from the food stamp program. The House and Senate must reach a compromise before the current farm bill expires at the end of September.
The panel defeated, on a 31-15 vote, a proposal by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., that would have eliminated all the proposed cuts to food stamps, which he said would "literally take food away from hungry people."
But Republicans pointed to the sharp rise in food stamp beneficiaries, from 19 million in 2002 to 46 million a decade later.
Later, half of the 26 Republicans on the committee joined Democrats in a 33-13 vote to defeat an amendment by Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., to double the food stamp cuts.
Several Republicans acknowledged that deeper cuts would make it harder to reach a compromise with the Democratic-led Senate. Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Midland, said, "We will have squandered our one really good chance of getting beyond" the level of cuts in the Senate bill, which would trim food stamp spending by $400 million a year.
