White House tileWASHINGTON – The White House is threatening to veto the House version of a massive, five-year farm bill, saying food stamp cuts included in the legislation could leave some Americans hungry.
The House is preparing to consider the bill this week. The legislation would cut $2 billion annually, or around 3 percent, from food stamps and make it harder for some people to qualify for the program. Food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, cost almost $80 billion last year, twice the amount it cost five years ago.
The Senate passed its version of the farm bill last week with only a fifth of the amount of those cuts, or about $400 million a year, with the support of the administration.
The White House said in its statement Monday that food stamps are “a cornerstone of our nation’s food assistance safety net.” The administration argued that the House should make deeper cuts to farm subsidies like crop insurance instead.
The bill, which costs nearly $100 billion a year, would save a total of about $4 billion annually, including the food stamp cuts. It would eliminate some subsidies while creating others, raising subsidy levels for several crops. It would expand the current crop insurance program and also create a new type of crop insurance that would kick in sooner than the paid insurance farmers have now.