They don’t even try to hide it anymore.
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Congress May Cut Food Aid, Not Farm Aid
WASHINGTON - Cuts in food programs for the poor are getting support in Congress as an alternative to President Bush’s idea of slicing billions of dollars from the payments that go to large farm operations.
Senior Republicans in both the House and Senate are open to small reductions in farm subsidies, but they adamantly oppose the deep cuts sought by Bush to hold down future federal deficits.
The president wants to lower the maximum subsidies that can be collected each year by any one farm operation from $360,000 to $250,000. He also asked Congress to cut by 5 percent all farm payments, and he wants to close loopholes that enable some growers to annually collect millions of dollars in subsidies.
Instead, Republican committee chairmen are looking to carve savings from nutrition and land conservation programs that are also run by the Agriculture Department. The government is projected to spend $52 billion this year on nutrition programs like food stamps, school lunches and special aid to low-income pregnant women and children. Farm subsidies will total less than half that, $24 billion.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said the $36 billion food stamp program is a good place to look for savings.
“There’s not the waste, fraud and abuse in food stamps that we used to see. … That number is down to a little over 6 percent now,” he said. “But there is a way, just by utilizing the president’s numbers, that we can come up with a significant number there.”
Bush is proposing to withdraw food stamps for certain families already receiving other government assistance. The administration estimates that plan would remove more than 300,000 people from the rolls and save $113 million annually.
Chambliss said minimal changes in all three areas of agriculture spending — nutrition, farm supports and conservation — could save what’s needed. “I want this to be as painless to every farmer in America as we can make it,” he said.
House budget writers this week reduced Agriculture Department spending for 2006 by $5.3 billion. Their counterparts in the Senate cut it by $2.8 billion. Bush’s proposals would cut farm spending by $8 billion as calculated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The House and Senate plan to vote on initial versions of the budget next week.
Anti-hunger and environmental groups are worried.
“Particularly in the House, the members are talking about taking all or most of it from nutrition,” said Jim Weill, president of the Washington-based Food Research and Action Center. “There isn’t a way to do it that doesn’t hurt, because the program’s very lean and doesn’t give people enough anyhow. The benefits are less than people need. The program’s not reaching even three-fifths of the people who are eligible. And the abuse rate is very low and is going down further.”
Eric Bost, the Agriculture Department’s undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer programs, told a House appropriations panel this week the programs are so efficient now it would be difficult to save money by targeting waste and fraud.