Glad to hear:
http://politicsinminnesota.com/...
DFL U.S. Sen. Al Franken joined dozens of U.S. Senate Democrats yesterday in supporting funding for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), a federal welfare program better known by its common name, “food stamps.” Franken is one of 39 U.S. Senators — 37 Democrats and two left-leaning Independents — who signed a letter which was sent to the conference committee members now working on revising the farm bill, a group that includes three of Franken’s fellow Minnesotans.
“This past week,” Franken said, in a statement attached to the letter, “I met with farmers and farm leaders from across Minnesota who want us to ensure that we don’t hurt children, seniors and families in Minnesota and across the country by slashing SNAP funding in the farm bill. I’ve seen firsthand how these safety-net benefits are an effective tool to help fight hunger across Minnesota in our rural and urban communities alike.”
Franken was joined in signing the letter by most of his more liberal colleagues in the U.S. Senate, as well as a number of lawmakers who represent states with a large agricultural industry.
Funding for food stamps has been a crucial sticking point in the debate over the farm bill. The Democratic-controlled Senate reduced the program’s overall budget by $4.5 billion over the next 10 years, while Republicans in the House went considerably further, cutting SNAP by $39 billion. Narrowing that gulf is expected to be one of the most difficult tasks for the conference committee. - Politics In Minnesota, 10/29/13
Along with Franken, the letter was also signed by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Tom Udall (D-NM), Edward Markey (D-MA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Christopher Murphy (D-CT), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Bob Casey (D-PA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Mark Begich (D-AK), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA), Mark Udall (D-CO), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Carl Levin (D-MI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Angus King (I-ME), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Jon Tester (D-MT), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Tim Johnson (D-SD). Here's the letter they sent:
http://goldrushcam.com/...
Dear Farm Bill Conferees,
We are writing to express our support for preventing harmful cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Farm Bill. SNAP is our nation’s first line of defense against hunger. SNAP provides essential nutrition benefits to working families, children, senior citizens, and disabled individuals in every state and town in our country. Every dollar in new SNAP benefits generates up to $1.79 in economic activity, of which approximately 16 cents goes back to the farmers.
While we support efforts to improve the integrity of the SNAP program, we encourage conferees to reject all SNAP eligibility changes designed to erect new barriers to participation, preventing millions of seniors, children and families from accessing food assistance. The eligibility changes also will mean an additional 280,000 children would lose free school meals because children in SNAP households are automatically eligible for school meals. Changes would also increase administrative costs by requiring states to re-determine eligibility for SNAP, even if a household was deemed eligible for other state and/or federal assistance programs.
SNAP plays a critical role at a stressful time in the life of families. It allows struggling families to put groceries on their tables when they face financial troubles. Benefits average less than $1.50 per individual, per meal, and within this limited budget they struggle to provide healthy, nutritious meals for themselves and their family. In fact half of SNAP participants entering the program are enrolled for 10 months or less.
Researchers estimate that half of all American children will receive SNAP at some point during childhood, and half of all adults will do so at some point between the ages of 20 and 65 years. Furthermore, SNAP recipients are diverse with regards to race-ethnicity, many have earned income, and the vast majority of SNAP households do not receive cash welfare benefits.
SNAP is a safety net program in the truest sense of the world; there is no other more fundamental human need than food. Please consider the needs of these struggling families, children, and senior citizens as you negotiate the final Farm Bill and the future of the SNAP program.
Franken isn't the sole Minnesota delegate to fight back against cuts to SNAP:
http://www.minnpost.com/...
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz are among the 41 lawmakers sitting on the bicameral committee assigned to forge a compromise farm bill before the end of the year. The committee meets for the first time on Wednesday, and Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said he’s “more optimistic than I’ve been” about the chances they come to some kind of agreement. - Minn Post, 10/29/13
Why are Congressional Republicans so obsessed with cuts to SNAP? because they believe that it will help get more to stop being dependent on food stamps:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The House bill would remove 3.8 million people from the food-stamp rolls over the upcoming year by making two big changes:
-- First, it would reinstate limits on benefits for able-bodied, childless adults aged 18 to 50. These recipients would only be able to collect limited benefits — up to three months over a three-year period — unless they worked more than 20 hours per week or enrolled in job-training programs. (States are currently able to waive these latter requirements when unemployment is high.)
Conservatives have argued that reinstating the work requirements will encourage adults to find jobs more quickly. Liberal critics have countered that employment opportunities are still scarce in many parts of the country — many Americans will simply lose their food aid without finding work. This change would remove an estimated 1.7 million people from the food-stamp rolls.
-- The second big change is that the House bill would restrict states' abilities to determine a person's eligibility for food stamps based in part on whether they qualify for other low-income benefits. This is known as "categorical eligibility" and has generally allowed families just above the poverty line to receive food stamps if they have unusually high housing costs or are facing other hardships.
This second change would take another 2.1 million people off food stamps in 2014 and then remove an additional 1.8 million people per year for the next decade.
It's unclear how many of these cuts will actually get passed into law, however, since the House and Senate still have to figure out how to reconcile their two bills. - Washington Post, 10/28/13
Franken and his colleagues are right to be arguing against cuts to SNAP. The consequences could be severe:
http://www.salon.com/...
“If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food,” Margarette Purvis, the president and CEO of the Food Bank for New York City, told Salon Monday. Purvis said that the looming cut would mean about 76 million meals “that will no longer be on the plates of the poorest families” in NYC alone – a figure that outstrips the total number of meals distributed each year by the Food Bank for New York City, the largest food bank in the country. “There will be an immediate impact,” she said.
“The fact that they’re going to lose what’s basically an entire week’s worth food” each month, said Purvis, “it’s pretty daunting.” She told Salon that while policymakers “are attempting to punish people for being poor,” and “people are comforted by believing that they know that a person has to have done something wrong in order to be poor,” in reality, “I can tell you that more and more folks have more than one job and are still needing help.” (As I reported last week, audio recorded by a McDonald’s worker-activist showed a counselor on an employee hotline encouraging her to sign up for food stamps because it “takes a lot of the pressure off how much money you spend on groceries.”) Purvis added that cutting food stamps was “not even good business sense,” because each dollar of food stamps infuses over $1.70 of spending into the economy.
“We were all told that these cuts for November 1 would not happen,” said Purvis. When “they decided they were going to take from some of the increases to food stamps” to fund First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program, she told Salon, “We were told, you know, by the president…these cuts will not happen, we won’t get rid of the program. Well guess what? November 1 is around the corner, and no one has restored that money.” - Salon, 10/28/13
Children and the poor wouldn't be the only ones hurt royally by the SNAP cuts:
http://thinkprogress.org/...
Benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, will automatically drop come Friday thanks to the loss of additional funds from the 2009 stimulus bill. That cut will hit about 900,000 of the country’s veterans, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“Nationwide, in any given month, a total of 900,000 veterans nationwide lived in households that relied on SNAP to provide food for their families in 2011,” CBPP writes. The number varies state to state, with over 100,000 veterans in households that rely on the benefits in Florida and Texas each.
The coming cut will range from $36 a month for a family of four to $11 a month for a single person. Food stamps will average less than $1.40 per person per meal next year with the cut. Benefits were already sparse, at just $133 a month on average. - Think Progress, 10/29/13
While I respect and appreciate Franken and his colleagues' call in stopping further cuts from happening, we need this Congress to reject all cuts to SNAP. Please do take a moment and sign the Daily Kos petition speaking out against any and all food stamps cuts:
https://www.dailykos.com/...