Calls Needed Today to Tell Senate: Don't Cut Food Stamp Program

From the Food Research and Action Center

SNAP Cut Proposed as Offset for Senate "Extender"Bill

Last night, seeking ways to pay for the pending American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act (H.R. 4213) ("extenders bill"), Senate leaders included a proposal to cut billions from future SNAP benefits.

The "extenders" bill provides important support to continue extended unemployment insurance and enhanced Medicaid matching funds to the states, but it is unacceptable to pay for such benefits by raiding desperately needed SNAP/Food Stamp dollars. The SNAP/Food Stamp cut would take the form of ending (current proposal as of June 1, 2014) the boost in benefits that Congress included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This would return millions of families to the situation where SNAP/Food Stamp benefits typically ran out in the third or early in the fourth week of the month. It would increase hunger just when the President's 2015 end-childhood-hunger deadline is coming, and it would increase obesity by making it even harder for struggling families to purchase healthy food.

The cut is estimated to total $9.56 billion, nearly one half of all the SNAP/Food Stamp investments in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Message/Action: Call your Senators today and tell them to oppose the SNAP offset in the American Jobs, Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act (H.R. 4213), and to fix the package immediately so needed Medicaid and Unemployment benefits can pass without harming SNAP/Food Stamp beneficiaries. Your Senators need to weigh in with leadership today. Making more people hungry is not an acceptable way to pay for other benefits.

Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121, or to access the Senate directory, click here (pdf).