The House Considers Food Stamps and Taxes

We released two pieces today on House action this week to cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  The second of our pieces juxtaposes the SNAP cuts against a pending tax cut for small businesses.

• House Agriculture Committee Proposal Would Cut 2 Million Off Food Stamps, Reduce Benefits for More Than 44 Million Others

  The House Agriculture Committee, which the House-approved budget requires to quickly produce $33 billion in savings over the next decade, approved a proposal today that would obtain the entire amount from cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.   The cuts — which would come on top of another proposal in the House budget to cut SNAP by $133 billion over the next decade and convert it to a block grant — would reduce or eliminate benefits for all SNAP households, including the poorest.

  No other program under the Committee’s jurisdiction would face any cut under the proposal, despite frequent calls for reform of the nation’s farm subsidies — 74 percent of which go to the largest, most profitable farms, according to the Agriculture Department based on 2009 data. . . .

• Statement by Chad Stone, Chief Economist, on Pending House Tax Cut and House Committee SNAP Benefit Cuts

  The House majority is pursuing legislation this week that makes no economic sense.

  The full House will pass a $46 billion tax cut that’s advertised as a “job-creating” measure, while the House Agriculture Committee approved a plan today to save $36 billion by cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps).  Virtually the entire tax cut as well as about $8 billion of the SNAP cuts would take place in 2012-2013.

  That’s simply wrong-headed.

  The $8 billion in SNAP cuts over the next year would do more damage to economic growth and job creation than any stimulus that the $46 billion in tax cuts could generate, according to standard “multiplier” or “bang-for-the-buck” estimates like those from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Moody’s Analytics. . . .