Cutting SNAP: Kicking the poor while they’re down

Yesterday, House Republicans voted in favor of a bill that would cut funding for SNAP (commonly referred to as food stamps) by $40 billion over the next decade. Should the bill end up as law, the immediate results would be a staggering 3.8 million people who would be kicked off the program next year according to the Congressional Budget Office. In the long term, 14 million people would be forced off of the program. All of this at a time when food insecurity is at some of the highest levels since the USDA began collecting data on it. How could House Republicans vote for such a bill?

The justifications put forward have been couched in language about “getting Americans back to work” or “closing loopholes,” but reality is often different than what we hear in these kind of vague statements. It is hard to imagine, for instance, that cutting SNAP benefits for millions of people would result in “getting Americans back to work” when there are three unemployed persons for every job opening. And what is one of the “loopholes” the bill closes? It would do away with an expanded eligibility rule that allows States to provide SNAP benefits for households at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level or about $30,000 or less a year for a family of four. Oh, and did I mention that a large number of households receiving SNAP already work? And the program has a fraud rate of a whopping 1.3 percent?

Given all of this, in what world is the House Republican bill helpful or efficient? What this bill seems to be is just another kick to the poor while they are already down, which is not helpful, efficient or a particularly upstanding moral thing to do.