Trump Administration Unveils More Cuts to Food Stamp Program

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department moved again this week to cut spending on food stamps, this time proposing changes that would slice $4.5 billion from the program over five years, trimming monthly benefits by as much as $75 for one in five struggling families on nutrition assistance.

The latest plan would cut benefits for 19 percent of households on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly called food stamps, while increasing benefits for 16 percent. Almost 8,000 households would lose benefits entirely. Those cuts would be concentrated in cold northern states that would be most affected by a change in the way heating costs are calculated.

The number of families losing benefits is a tiny percentage of the nearly 40 million people who receive benefits, and even $4.5 billion over five years is a trim for a program that cost $68 billion in 2018 alone.

But the latest move is the third time the Trump administration has moved to cut food stamps. In December, the Agriculture Department said it sought to place more stringent work requirements on the program. In July, the administration proposed a rule that would strip more than three million people of their benefits. The public comment periods for both those proposals have ended, and final rules are expected soon.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/us/politics/trump-food-stamp-cuts.html

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Scorched earth.

[R Merm]

1. The meanness is the agenda.

[Lindsay]

2. Scorched earth

littered with dead bodies.

It's the Republican agenda.

[Leghorn21]

3. Oh sweet, watch people suffer TWO ways for the price of one!!

“Those cuts would be concentrated in cold northern states that would be most affected by a change in the way heating costs are calculated.”

Starve them AND freeze them simultaneously!!

NICE WORK YOU MOTHERFUCKING SADOMASOCHISTS

[Lochloosa]

4. The most egregious statement is 40 million on SNAP.

A living wage would go a long way to eliminating that number.

[njhoneybadger]

5. So they can give tax breaks to the super wealthy while the poor go hungry

When does the greed stop.

[keithbvadu2]

6. Cuts heavily aimed at democrat areas and darker skinned folks?

Cuts heavily aimed at democrat areas and darker skinned folks?

[Sinistrous]

7. Painfully obvious, isn't it?

[truthisfreedom]

8. Democratic areas, yes. "Democrat" is not an adjective.

[YOHABLO]

9. I'm living on SSDI and recently applied for food stamps. (drum roll please)

I get $18 dollars per ........ month! Yep a big $18 dollars. Oh I'll take it because it's getting harder and harder to afford groceries. Humiliating of course, but what can you do?

[Maraya1969]

10. Charles Koch had 41.3 billion but you have to take away 4.5 billion from the mouths of poor people

in this country.

Shame on all of you.

[orangecrush]

12. Sorry to tell you

They have no shame.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. Punishing states that vote Democratic

Pure politics, plain and simple

And pure Trumpian hatred and vindictiveness

[SWBTATTReg]

13. My ? is this...how does he get the authority to cut this? I thought this was auth. by ...

Congress as part of the Agriculture bill pushed through?

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Congress approves a budget for it (Farm Bill) and designates the appropriations

but what they want to do is change the formula for calculating eligibility -

From the OP -

/snip

Under the new rule, the Agriculture Department would set a fixed allowance for heating and cooling costs based on average utility costs in each state — because “the degree of flexibility in current regulations causes inequities from state to state.”

The department pointed to a study it conducted in 2017 that found that, in some states, overestimates of utility costs were giving some people too many food stamps, while in others, people were getting too few.

The proposed rule aims to “better reflect what low-income households are actually paying for utilities so that eligible households receive SNAP benefit amounts which more accurately reflect their circumstances, no matter the state in which they reside,” the administration said.

States would “still have the option of accepting actual utility costs through documentation from the applicant,” the department said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/us/politics/trump-food-stamp-cuts.html

And of course those who pay the most for utilities (based on weather) are those in the NE & central MW due to hot summers and cold winters (so a need for BOTH heat and AC) vs other parts of the country that might only need AC or might be able to get away with only needing "portables" (heat or AC) for any brief heat or cold waves.

[SWBTATTReg]

17. Thanks so much for the heads up. At least States do have some cntl still on appropriations...

as some have listed in the OP trends, some are getting food stamps but the amounts are pathetic and I don't se how this helps people. I remember a neighbor of mine who was applying for food stamps, and he was only going to get something like $15 or thereabouts (a month!).

He said that it wasn't worth the hassle, as he had to take off from his min. paying job to go and get (wasn't sure what he had to get, I guess proof etc.). A real shame for these folks are in need and if they are going to take taxes from me, I'd rather have it make a difference in someone's life.

Thanks again!

[BumRushDaShow]

19. You are welcome but one other thing

The rule change would probably get a lawsuit filed to block it (like the work requirements change for Medicaid in some states that was blocked), so will have to see what happens in the future as this may not even go into effect.

[SWBTATTReg]

20. And you're are absolutlely right! Thank god at least we some recourse...from what I hear, ...

there are about 20+ states that go after such things in court too. Good.

Take care and thanks so much!

I recall the work requirement thing that came out, and it's still being fought in courts in quite a few states...

[Igel]

23. My reading of the underlying materials referred to

puts the highest costs in NJ, NY, ME, NH, RH, and MA.

WI and MN are far lower. And I'm not sure that TX, what with AC on 8 months out of the year in many households would come in that far behind.

What *is* different, I've found, are electricity rates. My rates in some states I've lived in had far higher rates--I'd spend $100 a month for my small apt., barely heated or cooled, and then move to where I live now and live in a house 4x the size, with 20 years' inflation, modestly air condition the place, and still pay $200/month in July. Fees and taxes and surcharges plus limits on cheap sources of power and instead focusing on more expensive sources are regressive, even if there is an additional surcharge on electricity and heating oil so as to provide a subsidy to those who can't afford it, often because of all the additional surcharges.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. I think that high cost in the NE (and some other areas)

but notably New England, is due to those who still use oil heat - particularly those who are in small towns/rural because no utility has run natural gas lines to those homes (and to use electric heat there - forgeddaboddit!).

I didn't include the "Upper midwest" (like WI or MN or upper peninsula MI) because in many cases - particularly along and near the Canadian border - they don't normally have to have as much of an AC bill compared to areas further south.

But there is an issue of how one would calculate "average" cost when weather (temps) can be so variable from year to year (i.e., would this be over "x" number of years or????).

[hatrack]

14. The cruelty is the point

.

[dchill]

18. That was going to be my post, too.

There's no other point to it.

[bluestarone]

16. More money for

His FN wall!

[left-of-center2012]

21. "the third time the Trump administration has moved to cut food stamps"

Alligators ain't cheap.
Gotta fill that border moat.

[sakabatou]

22. Trump loves cruelty

[CrispyQ]

25. I will never look at Trump supporters the same.

There's always gonna be a huge demerit in the integrity/honor/decency/respect column.

[Newest Reality]

26. The image...

Taking food out of the mouths of children and seniors. Of course, I include the adults in-between.

Starving the vulnerable in a difficult economic climate, (simply for the fact that working people require assistance to survive) is yet another national disgrace.

As it has been said, you judge a society by the way it treats its most vulnerable members. The judgment is in: failure of decency.

[MFM008]

27. This treasonous

Asshat would get NOTHING.
Democrats need to strong arm this crap.