The House Ag farm bill markup has entered its second day, but the key stumbling block to a bipartisan bill has now come into sharp focus. The fight over SNAP versus farm programs has kept a new farm bill off the books for at least three years.
Republicans got around that, boosting crop support levels with SNAP savings in the president’s tax and spending bill last July. Now, Democrats are hammering Ag Committee Republicans over that bill’s work requirements, which they charge cut $187 billion from SNAP.
Top Ag Democrat Angie Craig.
“Cutting SNAP by 187 billion dollars has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of Americans having their food assistance either cut or taken away.”
Republicans countered that the work requirements are fair and pointed out that farmers also need help. Ag Chair GT Thompson says last year’s tax bill boosted reference prices and other farm programs.
“Making crop insurance more affordable and doubling trade assistance. And by the way, many of you in the room supported that because those were bipartisan initiatives that we put into the last farm bill that we marked up.”
Majority Republicans defeated the Democratic amendment to restore the SNAP funding on a voice vote. Democrats then requested a record vote that was postponed. But it’s clear the issue, now in the heat of a mid-term election year, will again cost bipartisan support for a farm bill last renewed in 2018.