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Stalemate in Congress puts Texas food stamp recipients in limbo

Republicans and Democrats are divided on how to handle nutrition assistance and other programs.

WASHINGTON — As Dallas-area food stamp recipients struggle to keep pace with the region’s skyrocketing cost of living, anti-hunger advocates are monitoring how partisan divisions in Congress are affecting the program’s future.

Lawmakers are nearly a year late in passing an updated farm bill, which includes the nutrition assistance program commonly known as food stamps, and the delay is expected to last beyond the November election.

“We’re seeing higher numbers of need than we did during the pandemic even,” said Clarissa Clarke, North Texas Food Bank’s government relations officer.

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The number of food-insecure individuals across the organization’s 13-county service area has reached 777,000, with more than one-third being children.

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Texas had the nation’s highest number of food-insecure individuals, according to a recent report based on 2022 data. The organization’s service area ranks fourth in the country for food insecurity, Clarke said.

Food stamps average a few dollars a meal and recipients say they can find it tough to buy groceries at the end of the month, when benefits are typically exhausted.

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Recipients describe making meals out of whatever’s cheapest, like hot dogs and eggs, and find it difficult to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables because of how quickly they spoil.

Anti-hunger advocates say 2021 changes to food stamps, combined with COVID-related relief programs, went a long way toward helping those receiving assistance. They are calling for more to be done to counter inflation and the expiration of pandemic-era programs.

Any updates to the program are in limbo as Republicans and Democrats wrangle over a new farm bill.

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That legislation, which is supposed to be passed every five years, marries federal crop subsidies with the food stamp program known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Benefits built on outdated model

A central dispute in the farm bill revolves around the Thrifty Food Plan, the cheapest of four U.S. Department of Agriculture plans. The plans are intended to illustrate a healthy diet at different costs based on the national average price of different foods and beverages.

The Thrifty Food Plan is used to determine food stamp benefit levels.

A 2021 Biden administration overhaul of the plan resulted in an increase of $1.5 billion in SNAP benefits for Texans. That increase included $213 million across the North Texas Food Bank’s service area, the bulk of which went to Dallas County recipients.

Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, a nonprofit that works to end hunger, said the Thrifty Food Plan was crafted a half-century ago on assumptions that are now outdated.

For example, the plan assumes recipients primarily buy rice, milk, potatoes and eggs and spend two hours or more every day preparing food from scratch. Think soaking beans rather than buying them canned, she said.

The plan also was calculated with the idea people would spend about a third of their income on food. Housing, health care expenses and transportation costs have grown to consume a much larger portion of household budgets.

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“Those assumptions were what were driving the basis for the Thrifty Food Plan, and yet we know consumption patterns have changed, dietary guidelines have changed,” Cole said. “The cost of food as a share of overall household expenses has changed.”

She praised the 2021 modernizing efforts but said more is required.

“That increase was making up for five decades of shortchanging families because it had never been updated for more than inflation,” she said. “The benefits are inadequate for people to be able to consistently purchase a healthy diet.”

House Republicans have proposed a farm bill that keeps basic annual inflation bumps but would bar other adjustments beyond that in the future, potentially resulting in $30 billion less in national SNAP spending over the next decade, including $2.29 billion less in Texas.

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“We would be guaranteeing that SNAP benefits will continue to be inadequate, and over time they’d become more and more inadequate,” Cole said.

Texans on agriculture panel split

Four Texans sit on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee that advanced the GOP farm bill in May. Two Democrats, U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas and Greg Casar of Austin, voted against the proposal.

Two Republicans, U.S. Reps. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo and Monica De La Cruz of McAllen, voted for it.

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Republicans disagree with those who say they seek to cut the program, saying the amount to be spent will increase under the bill.

“If you look at the long term, it actually protects the SNAP program,” said Jackson, who represents the sprawling 13th District that runs west and north from Denton across much of the Panhandle.

Agricultural interests in the district want to see increased reference prices used in farm subsidy programs and a more accessible crop insurance program, Jackson said, but he added they might be better off waiting until after the election.

If Republicans do well, they would be positioned to better root out fraud in the food stamp program, he said.

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“Hopefully if we have a Republican House, Republican Senate and a Republican White House next year, we can clean up the fraud in SNAP, and that’ll be good for the poor people that rely on it and good for production agriculture,” Jackson said.

When the committee considered the legislation, Crockett said critics were mischaracterizing fraud in the program.

“I don’t know why we’re debating whether or not children should have access to food,” Crockett said. “I don’t know why we’re debating and deciding we’re going to fix all of the world’s problems at the expense of people that are struggling.”

Republicans said they are proposing changes Democrats wanted, such as repealing a prohibition on food stamps for those with felony drug convictions.

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Many states, including Texas, already acted to remove the prohibition on convicted drug offenders, limiting the impact of that change.

Cole opposes the GOP’s proposal for the Thrifty Food Plan.

“There’s lots of little things in there, some of which are good, but none of which offset the incredible damage that limiting future adjustments to the Thrifty Food Plan would cause for hungry people in Texas,” Cole said.

The Senate, under control of Democrats, is still working on its version of the farm bill.

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Cole said advocates are pushing against the proposal to freeze the food stamp benefits formula. They also want to significantly increase the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which provides emergency food assistance to low-income people.

Cole said passing the farm bill has typically been a bipartisan exercise uniting rural and urban representatives, but political divisions in today’s Congress are making it difficult to get a bill finished.

“We’re mostly concerned that this sort of stalemate, and the delay, is creating increased food insecurity in Texas and increased need at our food banks,” Cole said.