By ALEX GANGITANO
and JERRY HAGSTROM

A House Agriculture subcommittee hearing on the role of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps, Thursday showed partisan differences over the program that were similar to those during the farm bill debate.

“No matter what side of the aisle you sit on, we can all agree on the importance of SNAP in helping those in need,” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, the subcommittee chairman, said as he opened the hearing.

“However, with soaring deficits and an out-of-control national debt, we must be mindful of this grave fiscal situation,” King said. “We as members of Congress have a responsibility to the American people to oversee federal programs paid for by the taxpayer to ensure that they are operating in the most efficient, cost-effective manner.”

Contrastingly, Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio the subcommittee ranking member, said, “I’m hopeful the pilot programs created by the farm bill will produce innovative approaches to ensuring low-income working families can secure employment with adequate wages so they can lift themselves out of poverty and off SNAP. Contrary to what some critics of the program may believe, most Americans want a hand up, not a handout.”

“There are many hungry children in this country who, without SNAP, would not be able to go from day to day,” Fudge said.

“The challenge right now to me is the integrity of the system,” said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga. “When you allow the integrity to start to slide, whether it’s categorical eligibility or turning your head and looking the other way… then any of the programs lose support of the American citizen. And that’s where we have the problem. We have the responsibility to address that ‘for all’ because if we don’t, in the end, we would be able to serve fewer people.”

Two witnesses testified that eligibility requirements should be stricter.

Sidonie Squier
New Mexico Human Services Department Secretary Sidonie Squier noted that the number of food stamp beneficiaries has grown tremendously in recent years.

“The financial costs of distributing free food to such a large proportion of American families is a substantial burden on the average American taxpayer,” Squier said.

She said the number of able-bodied people who get food stamps has risen and added, “there’s a reason for that, and it’s because we have made it so easy.”

Squier also noted that she is a member of the Secretary’s Innovation Group, which is composed of Republican human services secretaries in the states, and that the group worked with Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., last year on what became the food stamp work demonstration project.

Squier suggested that Congress reconsider the use of categorical eligibility as a way for people to qualify for food stamps and the Agriculture Department Food and Nutrition Service’s promotion of states using that system for qualification.

Rep. Michelle Grisham, D-N.M., noted that her state is the most food insecure for children in the country. Squier responded that New Mexico has high-level participation in the school lunch programs, but Grisham said that the families still need SNAP because parents don’t have jobs.

But Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said, “Being poor is hard work. Before we throw categorical eligibility out the window, let’s see what it’s about. I think the benefit, in my opinion is not generous enough. People who are on SNAP usually end up in food banks.”

Robert Doar
Robert Doar, who was the Human Resources Administration commissioner in New York City during the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg and is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, also testified.

“SNAP has been an extremely responsive tool to combat the economic downturn and has provided substantial assistance to low income Americans,” Doar said.

“SNAP enables low wages to go farther and has played an integral role in the fight to reduce poverty. Studies such as one by Tiehan, Jolliffe & Smeeding for the Institute for Research on Poverty have shown that SNAP decreases poverty by as much as 16 percent, and cuts extreme poverty in half, making it an extremely effective antipoverty program.”

But Doar noted the growth in the number of beneficiaries in recent years.

“The widespread ending of an asset test for SNAP is a mistake,” he said. “Those decisions should be revisited, with the goal of preventing people with significant assets from receiving SNAP benefits.”

“In addition, while Congress attempted to close the LIHEAP [Low Income Heat and Energy Assistance Program] loophole, the extent to which states have been able to continue to falsely characterize public housing residents as being in need of LIHEAP assistance shows that, for some, programs such as SNAP are not about encouraging work — and thereby reducing poverty — but about drawing down as much federal aid as possible.”

“A national nutrition standard I think is crucial,” Doar said. “I think states by and large do a terrific job. Can we hold them to a higher standard? Push them? Absolutely.”

Rep. Vance McAlliser, R-La., said he would like to see the SNAP program be used to buy only highly nutritional foods in grocery stores.

Doar responded that Bloomberg asked the Agriculture Department to undertake an experiment along those lines, but USDA refused.

“This is our fault, this is not the recipient’s fault,” McAllister said. “How do we get people off of this?”

Apparently referring to the union of farm policy and SNAP in the 2014 farm bill, McAllister added, “We worked hard on the marriage. This is one case where we should have been working hard on the divorce. That’s not a Democrat issue, that’s not a Republican issue, that’s an American issue. Decade after decade of making a meal dependent on us as a government.”

Rep. Gloria McLeod, D-Calif., supported the school nutrition program in her questioning.

McLeod said that she fears that if people who are auto-enrolled for the school program through SNAP lose their SNAP benefits, they could potentially not be eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch.

“I’m sure you know, any child who is hungry cannot learn,” McLeod said.

Stacy Dean
Stacy Dean, the vice president for food policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, testified that SNAP “does an admirable job of providing poor households with basic nutritional support and has largely eliminated severe hunger and malnutrition in the United States.”

Dean also said that officials who run other programs “are keenly aware of SNAP’s ability to scrutinize the financial circumstances of low-income households. As a result, numerous programs rely upon SNAP’s determinations of eligibility and assessment of individual circumstances when setting their own eligibility rules and procedures.”

Despite categorical eligibility and the elimination of the asset test, she said, “a [working mom] still has to go through a rigorous process of eligibility.”

McGovern noted that he spent a night in a homeless shelter in his district and there learned that most people worked and made minimum wage. But, while the costs of commodities, like eggs, are increasing, the minimum wage has not changed.

“[We need to] make sure people have an adequate benefit to put nutritious foods on the table for their families,” McGovern said. “I worry about the fact that when we talk about these issues, we end up demonizing people who are poor, who desperately don’t want to be poor, who are working.”

“This has opened up a lot of topics and I think it is expanded the dialogue … we have a common cause,” King concluded.

Written testimony

▪ Sidonie Squier, New Mexico Human Services Department
▪ Robert Doar, American Enterprise Institute
▪ Stacy Dean, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities